Petrobras Magazine Global Connections #65

EXPLORING PMGC

PETROBRAS MAGAZINE

Global Connections

www.petrobras.com/magazine

65

#

In search of discovery

G

erman physicist and the creator of the Theory of General Relativity, Albert Einstein, once stated that “It’s not the answers that move the world, but the questions.”

Sixty years after his death, Einstein’s discoveries are still the pillars of modern physics and his famous quotation continues to be the engine in the pursuit of knowledge. And one of Petrobras’ main principles is the constant pursuit of discoveries – not just discoveries of oil fields, but of new ways to respond to challenges.

In this context, edition 65 of Petrobras Magazine Global Connections shows the combination of creativity and effort as the path to innovate and achieve ever more challenging results. We tell the stories of people who think and act ingenuously, show the new relationships between mankind and technology, and present the benefits, advances and revolutions these achievements are bringing to the world.

In this edition, we present people who give new uses to concepts and technologies in order to transform our everyday lives. They include sociologist Domenico De Masi and economist Michael Green, who talk about the importance of balancing economics and quality of life in the Dialogues section. In Energy Geek, we describe how the subsea to somewhere and subsea to shore concepts are being used to take equipment traditionally installed on platforms to the seabed.

In the Frontiers section, we go to Petrobras’ Center for Visualization and Collaboration, one of the most advanced facilities of its kind in the world, to show how virtual reality is taking experts into projects and improving the safety of operations.

In Over the Seas, we give details about coral research that has identified a substance capable of combating super-bacteria such as KPC, which causes hospital-acquired infections.

In addition, Ged Davis, director of the World Energy Council, talks about the energy scenarios that are being forecast for the future; Brazilian mathematician Arthur Ávila, a Fields Medal winner, tells a little of his story; and Laís Abramo, director of the International Labor Organization’s Brazilian office, highlights women’s challenges in the job market. We also present the work of internationally successful graffiti artists OSGEMEOS. We invite you to explore the magazine in its tablet version and on our website, at www.petrobras.com/magazine, where you can find more interactivity and galleries featuring unique photos, videos and audio resources. And keep an eye out: we will soon be providing some novelties, planned to get even closer and more connected to you. Stay tuned!

Enjoy!

Petrobras Magazine Global Connections Team

PETROBRAS MAGAZINE

Global Connections Goes beyond the print edition.

The tablet version is dynamic and interactive. You can also access the magazine on the internet. Access and participate!

Printed magazine —

iPad and Android ­ —

web — www.petrobras. com/magazine

facebook — facebook.com/ fanpagepetrobras

PETROBRAS MAGAZINE

BACKSTAGE

Global Connections

dialogues #1

03

frontiers #1

dialogues #2

Our interviewees

over the seas #1

over the seas

#2

Meet sociologist Domenico De Masi, economist Michael Green, engineer Luciano Reis and biologist Clóvis Castro, some of the people featured in this edition, all of whom are driven by questions and the pursuit of the new.

STAFF EXECUTIVE MANAGER FOR CORPORATE COMMUNICATION: Wilson Santarosa | INSTITUTIONAL RELATIONS AND OWNED MEDIA MANAGER: Gilberto Puig Maldonado | INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS MANAGER: Patricia de Mello Dias | EDITOR AND COORDINATOR: Estephani Beiler Zavarise | EDITOR: Carlos Aurélio Werneck de Miranda e Silva | IMAGE EDITOR: Suzana Fuhrken Peixoto | INTERNS: Rafaela da Rocha Costa and Isabella Leal Ignacio EDITORIAL STAFF DOWNSTREAM: Gustavo Melione Abreu | INTERNACIONAL AREA: Raphael Dias de Souza | RESEARCH CENTER: Liza Ramalho Albuquerque | EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION: Douglas Hamilton Santos Lobo | ENGINEERING, TECHNOLOGY AND MATERIALS: Ana Gabriela Spohr Josua | GAS AND ENERGY: Sandra Vasconcellos Chaves | CORPORATE IMAGE AND BRAND: Alexandre Henrique Pott | PRESS: Paula de Oliveira Almada Moraes | OWNED MEDIA: Leonardo Bruno Bocks Avellar | PETROBRAS BIOCOMBUSTÍVEL: Valério Tito Gam | COMMUNICATIONS AND INTERNAL RELATIONS: Patricia Alves do Rego Silva | SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: Elizete Pompa Antunes Vazquez | INVESTOR RELATIONS: Orlando Costa Gonçalves Junior | HEALTH, SAFETY, ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND THE ENVIRONMENT: Jose Carlos Coelho Cidade | CULTURAL AND SPORTS SPONSORSHIP: Fabio Jose Melo Malta CREDITS PUBLISHER: Llorente & Cuenca | EDITOR: Anatricia Borges | JOURNALIST RESPONSIBLE: Natalia Pacheco | TABLET VERSION PRODUCER: Víctor Valverde | TRANSLATION: Batata Comunicações | PHOTOGRAPHY: Francisco de Souza | ART EDITOR AND COORDINATOR: Yolanda Yebra | DESIGN, ILLUSTRATIONS AND PHOTOGRAPHIC DIGITAL ART: Tres Simple | INFOGRAPHICS: Nicolás Diez, Sebastián D’Aiello, Pini Day | REPORTERS: Alexandre Gaspari and Gabriel Costa

Petrobras Magazine Global Connections is not sold. To request a subscription or information, or to send in a letter or suggestions, contact our editorial team at the address: Petrobras / Relacionamento Internacional Avenida República do Chile 65, sala 1902 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ CEP: 20031-912 Brasil Email: petromag@petrobras.com.br | Website: www.petrobras.com/magazine This edition’s content was finalized on January 28, 2015 The partial or total reproduction of this publication’s articles is authorized provided that the source is credited.

Copyright 2014 by Petrobras. Affiliated to the Brazilian Association of Corporate Communication.

CONTENTS INDICE

Contents 14. ALL OVER The next wave of innovation Events debate key issues in the oil and gas sector

18. ENERGY GEEK Remote Operation “Subsea to somewhere” and “subsea to shore” concepts take equipment from the platforms to the seabed

24. PRISMA Gender Equality A matter of social justice, human rights and sustainable development

By Laís Abramo, director of ILO Brazil

26. OVER THE SEAS Cure that comes from the sea Research into typical Brazilian coral identifies substance able to fight super-bacteria

6. DIALOGUES Ideas for the 21st century Domenico De Masi and Michael Green talk about economic balance and quality of life

PETROBRAS MAGAZINE

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05

34. NEW DIMENSIONS Global challenges in sustainable energy Ged Davis, of the World Energy Council, talks about future scenarios

38. FRONTIERS In another dimension Virtual reality takes technicians from companies into projects in the field

44. PROFILE Probable Genius Arthur Ávila, the Brazilian who won a Fields Medal, the "Nobel Prize" of Mathematics

48. ART BOOK Kaleidoscope of art The style, history and some of the works of OSGEMEOS

55. BIG BANG Curious Facts Find out about some researches that can contribute to the preservation of the environment

DIALOGUES

IDEAS FOR THE 21ST CENTURY Italian sociologist Domenico De Masi and English economist Michael Green propose the adoption of new indicators, as opposed to GDP, to measure the ideal progress of nations, in a kind of pact between development and human happiness. In an exclusive interview with Petrobras Magazine Global Connections, they talk about the pathways and challenges for 21st century societies to reconcile economic balance and quality of life

I

n his latest book, Mappa Mundi, Domenico De Masi proposes the adoption of Gross National Happiness (GNH), an index created in the 1970s in Bhutan, as an alternative to measure the degree of a country’s development. Economist Michael Green, co-creator of the Social Progress Index, believes that the

widespread use of the indicator, which correlates social and economic development, may lead countries into a kind of competition based on the reduction of inequalities. In this interview, both talk about new ideas that can help the planet move forward towards more sustainable and fairer development.

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Photos: Francisco de Souza

DIALOGUES

PMGC: You both propose, each in your own way, new ways to measure the social development of nations. How can that be done?

De Masi: I believe that one should calculate both GDP and GNH. The two main enemies of happiness are consumerism and competitiveness.

Currently, in all Western countries, advertising induces alienating needs, banks make loans to enable the purchase of these products, and companies produce items that quickly replace those already purchased. This neurotic race produces, on the one hand, a rich group, always small in number and increasingly rich, and on the other hand a mass of poor people always numerous and increasingly poor. According to the UN, in 2000, when there were 6 billion people on the planet, 20% of people were rich and 80% were poor. In 2050, when there will be 9.3 billion people, 12% will be rich and 88% poor. If this really happens, we will certainly have a third world war.

“IF YOU HAVE AN IDEA TO MAKE A PROFIT, IT IS RELATIVELY EASY TO TAKE IT TO A SIGNIFICANT SCALE. SOCIAL INNOVATIONS ENCOUNTER CONSIDERABLY MORE DIFFICULTIES” GREEN —

Green: There are three indispensable factors. The first is: does the population have the basic survival needs – food, water, shelter and security? The second element is: do people have access to the components, the assets that will enable them to build a better life, such as basic education, information, health infrastructure and a sustainable environment? And the third dimension is: does every individual have the opportunity to develop their lives in the way they wish to without obstacles?

Do people have rights and freedom of choice, and do they live in a tolerant society with access to higher education?

We came to these definitions through literature, bibliographies, the compilation of ideas and testing with people, but obviously not everyone agrees with it

all, or with a single definition of social progress. However, we have tested these definitions with politicians, economists, entrepreneurs, philosophers, people in pubs, and they seem to be sufficient to understand to a reasonable degree what makes a good and functional society in a relatively universal manner. The key to the definition of social progress is that we don’t have GDP in the model. The UN’s Human Development Index, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)’s Better Life Index – all of these initiatives include GDP and other economic indicators, and then add social indicators afterwards. At our NGO, the Social Progress Imperative, we seek to analyze the relationship between economic and social development.

PETROBRAS MAGAZINE

Global Connections

PMGC: How did the concepts of the Social Competitiveness Index, Social Progress Index and Gross National Happiness Index come to be born?

De Masi: The world, and especially the West, is currently set to neoliberal thinking, which is based on the assumption that the planet’s resources are infinite, that progress will be infinite, that the competitive market automatically regulates power relations that develop in society, that social conflicts are always harmful, that the rich are rich because they deserve to be, and that the poor are poor because they in turn deserve to be. This type of thinking, which came to the fore with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, conquered the whole world and created a huge amount of damage to economic and social plans. Based on this single philosophy, the economy dominates politics, finance dominates the economy, and credit rating agencies dominate finance. And most disturbing of all is that this increases the worldwide gap between rich and

09

“THE ECONOMY DOMINATES POLITICS, FINANCE DOMINATES THE ECONOMY, AND CREDIT RATING AGENCIES DOMINATE FINANCE” DE MASI — poor. The 85 richest people in the world today, according to a Forbes magazine ranking, have accumulated wealth equivalent to that of 3.5 billion poor people. And that leads to the suicide of capitalism itself, because production increases while consumption decreases.

In Mappa Mundi, in addition to the neoliberal model, I tested many others,

from the Indian to the Chinese, from Japanese to Muslim, from Socialist to Communist. Each of these models has positive aspects that should be executed and negative aspects that should be expelled from the new ideal, utopian model, which may lead the post-industrial world to emerge from its current crisis.

DIALOGUES

DOMENICO DE MASI Italian sociologist Domenico De Masi became globally known in 2000 with the launch of his book Ócio Criativo (“Creative Leisure”), in which he advocates a model based on the simultaneity between work, study and leisure. The author of numerous books and publications, he previously lectured as a professor at the universities of Naples and Rome, and for 22 years he headed the S3.Studium school, which specializes in organizational sciences.

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MICHAEL GREEN Executive Director of non-profit NGO Social Progress Imperative, British economist Michael Green is co-author, along with Matthew Bishop, editor of The Economist magazine, of the books Philanthrocapitalism and The Road from Ruin: A New Capitalism for a Big Society. Previously, Green served as a senior official in the British Government’s Department for International Development.

DIALOGUES

“BRAZIL IS DOING SLIGHTLY BETTER THAN AVERAGE IN TRANSFORMING GDP INTO SOCIAL PROGRESS” GREEN —

Green: In 2009, Matthew Bishop and I wrote an article called The Capital Curve for a Better World, in which we said that if you have an idea to make a profit, it is relatively easy to take it to a significant scale. Investors, venture capital, private equity funds, public share offers. This kind of idea can come out of nowhere and quickly become large in scale. Social innovations encounter considerably more difficulties. And we said that there is a gap in the equity curve because of the way these innovations need to leap from NGOs to philanthropists and governments. These leaps are difficult.

And in this article we mentioned the idea of a Social Competitiveness Index, which is where our project began, and soon evolved into the Social Progress Index. Something that we emphasize is that there is a fairly close link between social progress and happiness, but they are still two different things. It is possible to live in a society that is happy, but full of failings. And it

is possible to live in a society that is perfectly functional but unhappy.

So these concepts overlap, but are different. And what we are trying to measure is whether a society is “good” and functional. Philosophically, we’re following the Aristotelian tradition and seeking to measure the eudemonia [term referring to wellbeing derived from the Greek “eu,” or “good,” and “daimōn,” or “spirit”], while happiness is a concept in the utilitarian tradition.

PMGC: What do you think of the Brazilian model of society?

De Masi: Brazil’s current model, based on peace and the reduction of inequalities, is a path of salvation for the whole world. In Brazil, priority should be given to the simultaneous struggle against corruption, violence, illiteracy and social inequalities.

Fortunately, the Brazilian people have

knowledge of these four priorities and denounce them using all the tools at their disposal: the internet, street demonstrations, and electoral behavior. Brazil features some very positive aspects, including marriage between people of different races, religions or of the same sex; the low level of conflict among the various ethnic and racial groups in the country; the undeniable reduction in distance in the gap between rich and poor, with a middle class that in the West is shrinking, while in Brazil it has grown; and the propensity for peace. While, in 500 years, Europe has given rise to hundreds of wars, Brazil had a single war, with Paraguay. It won’t be easy, for the neoliberal countries, to accept the Brazilian model, but sooner or later, the increasing social imbalances will not allow an alternative.

Green: According to Social Progress Index data, Brazil is doing slightly

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“BRAZIL’S CURRENT MODEL, BASED ON PEACE AND THE REDUCTION OF INEQUALITIES, IS A PATH OF SALVATION FOR THE WHOLE WORLD” DE MASI — better than average in transforming GDP into social progress. In general, Latin America tends to have a good performance in this regard. Emerging countries such as India, China and Russia have not yet achieved the same level of alignment between economic development and social progress, while

Brazil presents standards in line with developed countries. However, there are countries in South and Central America more advanced than Brazil in the transformation of GDP into social progress, particularly Uruguay and Costa Rica.

See excerpts from the interview with Domenico De Masi in our tablet version and on our website www.petrobras. com/magazine

Using SPI and GNH The first initiative to use the Social Progress Index (SPI) in Brazil occurred in the Amazon, instigated by the Amazon Institute for Man and the Environment (Imazon). Based on the same statistical method as used for global SPI, the Amazonian Index adopts indicators that reflect the social reality of 24 million people in 772 municipalities, using recent public data of relevance to the region’s specific characteristics. According to the study, 98.5% of the Amazon’s municipalities have a lower SPI than the national average. The survey found no correlation between social progress and deforestation.

The Gross National Happiness (GNH) index was established in Bhutan, in the 1970s, by King Igme Wangchuck. It is designed to measure the rate of a country’s development not only by its economic progress, but also the wellbeing of its population and how it treats the environment, among other criteria, such as family stability and security. It was adopted in 1972 by the small Buddhist country instead of GDP. Since then, the Bhutanese government has guided its public management with four assumptions: sustainable and equitable economic development, preservation of culture, conservation of the environment, and good governance.

ALL OVER

The next wave

of innovation

E

xecutives discussed key issues for the oil and gas sector at the 21st edition of the World Petroleum Congress (WPC), the industry’s largest global event, held last June in Moscow. The congress, which takes place every three years, brings together ministers of state and company CEOs from more than 80 countries.

Opening session of Rio Oil & Gas, held in September in Rio de Janeiro, which generated expected business deals worth R$164 million over the following 12 months

THE 500,000-BARREL CHALLENGE In 2014, Petrobras reached the milestone of 500,000 barrels of oil produced per day in the pre-salt layer. Today it is producing around 700,000 barrels per day in the province, which is composed of major accumulations of light oil with a high commercial value.

In the pre-salt, the evolution of production is higher than that recorded in other similar areas in the world, as well as the average production per well.

PETROBRAS’ GROWTH The pre-salt production also demonstrates Petrobras’ evolution over the years.

Time and number of wells needed to reach output of 500,000 barrels per day: Years 0

5

10

15

20

25

35 31 years

Petrobras (overall) (milestone reached in 1984)

500,000 barrels per day

30

4,108 production wells

Campos Basin (milestone reached in 1995)

21 years 411 production wells

Pre-salt (milestone reached in 2014)

8 years 25 production wells 0

500

1000

Production wells

SANTOS BASIN 1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

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Photo: Agência Petrobras

CAMPOS BASIN

SOME FIGURES FROM THE PRE-SALT AREA

TOTAL AREA

149,000 KM²

almost three and a half times the size of Rio de Janeiro state

In 2014, pre-salt accounted for around

22%

of Petrobras’ production

Exploration success rate

In 2018, it will account for

52%

in Brazil

of production (2014-18 Business Plan)

70%

100%

Petrobras in Brazil

Petrobras in Santos Basin pre-salt

RECORD DAILY OUTPUT

713,000

BARRELS on December 21, 2014

34 WELLS production

16 IN SANTOS BASIN 18 IN CAMPOS BASIN*

Platforms in production

12*

By 2018, another 18 production units will be on line * Information as of December 2014 SOURCE: Petrobras

ALL OVER

THE WPC ADDRESSED TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION IN CHALLENGING FRONTIERS —

One of the highlights of this edition was the special session on “The next wave of upstream innovation,” which discussed recent and future technological innovations aimed at exploring and producing oil and gas in ever more challenging frontiers.

Petrobras’ executive manager for the Libra area, Anelise Lara, participated in the debate and used Brazilian pre-salt as an example to talk about innovation in the upstream area. She emphasized that the technologies applied, from reservoir imaging to the design of production units, have been fundamental to the success of projects, helping to expand production tenfold over the last four years and to reduce costs.

Paulo Sergio Rodrigues Alonso, the advisor to Petrobras’ CEO on local content and executive coordinator of the National Oil and Gas Industry Mobilization Program (Prominp), presided over the forum “Ensuring the security of supply of equipment, materials and local content infrastructure”. Paulo Alonso gave an overview of local content policies across the world and stressed that such policies should be stimulating rather than protectionist.

The topics addressed by Petrobras representatives also included “The industry’s role in promoting development”, the benefits of using biofuels to cut greenhouse gas emissions, and women’s participation in the oil industry, among others.

Later in 2014, in September, the 17th edition of Rio Oil & Gas took place in Rio de Janeiro. Organized by the Brazilian Oil, Gas and Biofuels Institute (IBP), the conference achieved record volumes of business deals and attracted more than 47,000 visitors.

As part of the event, 828 “Business Round” meetings with 176 suppliers and 37 anchor companies were held over the course of two days, generating expected business deals worth R$164 million over the following 12 months.

The conference also attracted 3,800 participants from 31 countries.

Debut in solar power generation Petrobras’ first project in the area of solar power generation, the Alto do Rodrigues Photovoltaic Power Plant, in the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Norte, is now operating. The first tests were conducted in May and the plant came on line in August 2014.

In all, R$21 million has been invested in the project, which has a total generating capacity of 1.1 MW and also encompasses the implementation of two laboratories in the Gas and Renewable Energy Technologies Center (CTGAS-ER) and six solar radiation measuring stations across the country, as well as a range of research on the subject.

The project’s main objectives are to evaluate the impacts of a photovoltaic power plant on the electric network and calculate the real cost of the electricity generated. According to Petrobras consultant José Carlos Gameiro Miragaya, the company is increasingly qualified for this type of power generation.

Another photovoltaic power plant has also been constructed in Rio Grande do Norte, using concentrated photovoltaic technology and it has been operating since late 2014 at CTGAS-ER, in Natal.

Petrobras expands its proven reserves On December 31, 2014, Petrobras’ proven reserves of oil, condensate and natural gas reached 16.612 billion barrels of oil equivalent (boe), up 0.3% from 16.565 billion boe in 2013, according to the ANP/SPE (National Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency / Society of Petroleum Engineers) criterion. After new additions, asset sales and returned concessions, the company’s proven reserves rose by a net 0.943 billion boe, more than offsetting 2014’s output of 0.896 billion boe. As a result, Petrobras had a reserve-replacement ratio of 105%. According to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) criterion, Petrobras’ proven reserves of oil, condensate and natural gas amounted to 13.131 billion boe, up 0.1% from 13.123 billion boe in 2013.

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THE PROJECT’S MAIN OBJECTIVES ARE TO EVALUATE THE IMPACTS OF A PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANT ON THE ELECTRIC NETWORK AND CALCULATE THE REAL COST OF THE ELECTRICITY GENERATED — Photo: Divulgação Petrobras

PHOTOVOLTAIC POWER PLANT WITH A TOTAL GENERATING CAPACITY OF

—

1.1 MW

R$21 MILLION INVESTED IN THE PROJECT

—

ENERGY GEEK

REMOTE OPERATION “Subsea to somewhere” and “subsea to shore” concepts take equipment traditionally installed on platforms to the seabed and facilitate the remote production of oil and natural gas

O

ffshore oil and natural gas production is almost invariably associated with a platform, which is connected to equipment that does everything from injecting liquids and gases to increasing well flows until separating oil, natural gas and produced water.

However, what if it were possible to transfer to the seabed, near the production and injection wells, several kinds of equipment currently installed on platforms to conduct these activities?

Based on this idea, two concepts have arisen and the technology areas of oil and gas companies across the world have been busy working on them: “subsea to somewhere” and “subsea to shore.”

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Photo: Roberto Rosa / Petrobras Image Bank

ENERGY GEEK

PETROBRAS HAS ALREADY CARRIED OUT TESTS IN BRAZIL IN ORDER TO USE THE SUBSEA TO SOMEWHERE CONCEPT —

Photo: Geraldo Falcão / Petrobras Image Bank

After two years, Petrobras’ technicians are checking the first results of the technologies

In subsea to somewhere, the first apparent benefit is saving space on platforms by transferring equipment to the seabed. However, this application may have much broader potential, avoiding the use of new facilities to produce oil and gas. In new discoveries, depending on their size and recoverable volume, the processing and injection plants would be installed on the seabed.

Arise the concepts At the turn of the century, with the expansion of oil exploration and production into ever-deeper waters, progress in the automation field, the rising number of mature fields (areas operating for a long time that have started to produce more water) and the discovery of small accumulations of oil and gas in regions near already-installed platforms, the industry began to work with the possibility of avoiding or at least reducing the need to install new production units. This led to the development of the “subsea to somewhere” and “subsea to shore” concepts, which include the processing of liquids and gases, the transmission and distribution of electric power on the seabed, and systems for remotely operating and monitoring these activities – processes now carried out on platforms installed in fields.

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Global Connections

Photo: Steferson Faria / Petrobras Image Bank

21

One of the benefits of subsea to somewhere is to save space on the platforms

ENERGY GEEK

Photo: Juarez Cavalcanti / Petrobras Image Bank

Petrobras wants to expand the application of subsea to somewhere until 2020

The volumes treated by this equipment would be transferred to a production facility in a region farther away, generally in shallower waters. Subsea to shore, on the other hand, is an even more radical concept: it entails doing

all the hydrocarbon processing on the seabed and then directly transferring the volumes produced to the coast, without using a platform. The use of this concept would avoid the installation of a new production unit, thereby cutting the associated investment and operating costs.

Petrobras has already carried out tests in Brazil with an eye to the future use of subsea to somewhere. One of the most

THE SUBSEA MULTIPHASE PUMP INSTALLED IN BARRACUDA FIELD HAS ALREADY INCREASED ITS OUTPUT BY AROUND 6,000 BARRELS PER DAY —

notable innovations currently being applied is the subsea multiphase pump.

Operating since 2012, the subsea multiphase pumping has been installed in Barracuda field, Campos Basin.

Connected to production well BR-73 and platform P-48, the pump – which is

In the world The Ormen Lange and Snohvit natural gas field projects in Norway have a characteristic as yet unusual in today’s oil industry: the entire output of the areas, located around 100 km off the country’s coast, is transported without using any platform along the way. They are so far the world’s only examples of the subsea to shore concept to have been applied.

PETROBRAS MAGAZINE

Global Connections

THE SHIFT OF CERTAIN TYPES OF EQUIPMENT CURRENTLY INSTALLED ON PLATFORMS TO THE SEABED IS IN LINE WITH THE TOOLBOX CONCEPT — Photo: Geraldo Falcão / Petrobras Image Bank

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able to work with gas and liquid mixed in any proportion, raising oil production – is activated by electricity conveyed by the production unit, using cutting-edge technology. The system has already increased the field’s output by around 6,000 barrels per day. Conventional subsea pumping systems have limitations with regard to the gas/liquid proportion, and so are not suited to any oil field with associated gas – a common characteristic of Brazil’s offshore reservoirs. Besides raising production, the use of subsea multiphase pump is capable of increasing the recovery factor (productivity) of reservoirs and enabling production using wells that are farther from the platform.

CHALLENGES Using subsea multiphase pump and other processing and pumping technologies, Petrobras’ aim is to expand knowledge of new subseato-somewhere-related technologies, permitting their application on a large scale by 2020. This application’s major challenges involve guaranteeing the electricity supply to power equipment on the seabed and the need to install pumps capable of raising the pressure of fluids, especially liquids, to transfer them to the shore.

The shift to the seabed of certain types of equipment currently installed on production units is in line with the “toolbox” concept, which is aimed at enabling production in fields with many different characteristics by applying varied combinations of each “tool.” Two years after these new technologies were installed, Petrobras technicians are now verifying their first results. Regarding subsea gas-liquid separation, Petrobras already has equipment capable of doing this, such as the vertical annular separation and pumping system (VASPS). However, the separated liquid needs to be pumped to the platform – hence the importance of subsea pumps.

The subsea multiphase pump was installed in the Barracuda field, in the Campos Basin, connected to the P-48

PRISMA

Gender Equality

By Laís Abramo —

A matter of social justice, human rights and sustainable development

Photo: Rodrigo de Oliveira

PROFILE A sociologist with an MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of São Paulo, Laís Abramo is the director of the ILO’s office in Brazil.

She was the coordinator of the Labor Movements Commission of the Latin American Sociology Council (CLACSO) and a Senior Specialist for the ILO in gender issues for Latin America from 1999 to 2005. She was appointed to her current position in May 2005.

I

n a recently published report1 based on research undertaken in 108 countries, the International Labor Organization (ILO) states that women’s increasing participation in the labor market has been the driving force for growth and competitiveness on a global scale. However, barriers still remain to the more equal incorporation of women into the world of work, which manifest themselves, among other factors, in inequalities of income and the scope to access company directorships, despite women’s scholarity being better on average than men’s.

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women against discrimination during pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding, such as maternity leave and pay, and the temporary inability to be dismissed.

Convention 103 was ratified by the Brazilian government in 1965.

Convention 100 on Equal Remuneration for Work of Equal Value, created in 1951, was ratified by the Brazilian government in 1957. Convention 111 on Discrimination in Employment and Occupation (created in 1958 and ratified by the Brazilian government in 1965) is the first international instrument about discrimination, defined as any distinction, exclusion or preference based on grounds of race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, nationality or social origin that have the effect of nullifying or altering equality of opportunities and treatment in employment.

In turn, Convention 156 on Workers with Family Responsibilities (created in 1981 and still not ratified by the Brazilian government) complements Convention 111, establishing that no worker may be discriminated against at work due to their family responsibilities.

Finally, one should highlight the importance of Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, created in 2011 and also not ratified by the Brazilian government, aimed at ensuring decent working conditions for an extremely important category of the female labor force.

According to the ILO, gender equality is a matter of human rights and an essential condition for an effective democracy. It is also an issue for social justice, poverty reduction and social and economic development. In turn, gender discrimination is not only a violation of human rights and fundamental rights at work – it also represents a major cost for companies and society, as it leads to the waste of resources, talents and human potentialities.

The international labor standards adopted by the ILO are important instruments for combatting discrimination and promoting equality in the world of work. All of them apply equally to men and women, but there are some that have special importance for gender equality.

The maternity protection conventions (Convention 3, created in 1919, amended in 1952, giving rise to Convention 103, which was in turn amended in 2000, giving rise to Convention 183) define fundamental elements for protecting

Brazil has made significant progress in recent years in promoting gender equality, in the realm of public policies, collective bargaining and companies’ voluntary actions. Diagnosing the inequalities that persist is fundamental to identifying discriminatory practices that cause them and that ought to be eliminated, and to promoting policies for equal opportunities and treatment in the work environment.

1- ILO, 2015, Women in Business and Management: Gaining Momentum, Geneva.

OVER THE SEAS

Cure

that comes from

the sea

Research into Brazilian coral reefs identifies substance in elephant ear coral able to fight back against KPC, a super-bacterium that causes hospital-acquired infections

O

f the 600,000 coral species found in the world, 41 live off the coast of Brazil. Fixed and vulnerable beings, corals function as sentinels of the sea, protecting the coast from waves and erosion, and hosting the second richest biodiversity on the planet, behind only tropical forests. In this surprising marine world, corals fight for survival in a competition for food, space and shelter, in a kind of rich chemical warfare featuring the release of defensive proteins on the bottom of the ocean.

This production of potent chemical substances that help to determine which species are victorious and which are left behind on the path of evolution has over the last 10 years become one of the targets of scientific research to find a cure for diseases arising from bacteria, viruses and fungi. Brazilian coral reefs, which extend for 3,000 km along the coast, concentrated off northeast Brazil, may hold the cure for the hospital-acquired infections that afflict patients with pneumonia and gastrointestinal diseases caused by the super-bacterium Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase (KPC).

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Coral reefs have become targets of scientific research to produce drugs to combat bacteria, viruses and fungi

Photo: Coral Vivo

OVER THE SEAS

CORAL SPECIES WERE SELECTED IN LINE WITH THEIR VERY TOUGH CHEMICAL DEFENSE MECHANISMS —

Research led by the biochemistry area of the Catholic University of Brasília (UCB) in partnership with biologists from the Coral Vivo (“Living Coral”) project is exploring the use of defensive substances produced by Brazilian coral reef species to cure diseases. Elephant ear coral (scientific name Phyllogorgia dilatata), an endangered species found only in South Atlantic reefs, has a biomolecule in its defensive system able to counterattack KPC. Although little research has so far been conducted in the marine environment related to the production of pharmaceuticals in Brazil, the UCB study began in 2009 with the collection of coral samples in Arraial d’Ajuda,

on the southern coast of the state of Bahia. Besides elephant ear, materials were collected from the Palythoa caribaeorum, Plexaurella grandiflora, Carijoa riisei, Muriceopsis sulphurea and Neospongodes atlântica corals – all of which have powerful self-defense properties.

“The corals were selected in line with their characteristics, given that they survive in the highly competitive marine environment. Our first screening of these species was determined by tough chemical defense mechanisms,” explains Clóvis Castro, coordinator of the Coral Vivo project and an investigator of marine life off the Brazilian coast.

Coral Vivo project nurseries at the Eco Parque, in Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia, where the annual spawning of species takes place

Photo: Francisco de Souza

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Photo: Francisco de Souza

A close look at Brazilian coral Coral Vivo is part of the “Biomar” network of marine biodiversity projects, and it is sponsored by Petrobras through the Petrobras Social and Environmental Program. The project works to conserve coral reefs and coral environments in Brazil, through knowledge generation, the spreading of information, environmental education, awareness raising and coordination with society, and collaboration toward the development and execution of public policies.

Created by biologists Clovis Castro and Débora Pires, the Coral Vivo project was established at the National Museum at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, where they set out to study the processes of Brazilian coral reef structuring, formation and renewal. After the research had made some progress, in 2003 Coral Vivo became an official project and obtained financial support from the National Environmental Fund (FNMA). In 2006, Petrobras started to sponsor it as well.

In its first two years, Coral Vivo established historic milestones in the biological and ecological knowledge of corals endemic to Brazil, such as the determination of specific periods for the annual spawning of species and the obtaining of thousands of coral offspring resulting from in vitro fertilization.

In addition to on-site research, Coral Vivo also has a network of tanks to predict the reaction of corals to climate change in the sea. The “meso-cosmos,” as it is called, is the first system in Brazil to have a permanent link with the natural environment for studies related to marine variations, and the third in the world.

The other meso-cosmoses are located in Australia and Mexico.

The tanks are filled with natural sea water and then subjected to simulations of temperature and acidity variations to measure possible physiological alterations in the beings that live in the South Atlantic coral reefs. Studies are taking place in 16 tanks, which function as nurseries and undergo the researched alterations.

Photo: Coral Vivo

Clóvis Castro (left), founder of the Coral Vivo project, with the team of biologists working to conserve Brazilian marine biodiversity

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OVER THE SEAS

THE KPC SUPER-BACTERIUM Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenamase (KPC) is an opportunistic super-bacterium found in the gastrointestinal tract, causing hospital-acquired infections affecting mainly the lungs. It manifests when people have a weakened immunosuppressive system.

KPC affects more than 2 million people per year, in some cases leading to death 4. IT MAINLY AFFECTS THE LUNGS

WHAT IT IS It is considered a super-bacterium due to its high resistance to antibiotics

MEDICATIONS

PULMÂO

3. KPC RESISTANT TO MEDICATIONS

2. THE ENZYME CARBAPENEMASE IS FOUND IN KPC AND OTHER BACTERIA

1. KLEBSIELLA PNEUMONIAE BACTERIUM

EFFECTS ON THE HUMAN BODY

ITS DISCOVERY

Besides pneumonia, it can cause other types of infections, such as urinary ones and infections in surgical wounds, which can develop into a generalized infection and death

It was identified for the first time in the United States, in 1996, after having undergone a genetic mutation

Some klebsiella bacteria undergo mutations

Its modified DNA confers resistance

The KPC bacterium survives and reproduces

Substance in KPC that counteracts the antibiotic

Antibiotics are administered The bacterium without the enzyme dies

SOURCE: World Health Organization

Photo of bacterium: NIAID

THE NEXT STEP IS TO CONCLUDE WHETHER THE DEFENSIVE PROTEIN COMES FROM THE CORAL ITSELF OR FROM A BACTERIUM THAT LIVES IN ASSOCIATION WITH IT — THE INVESTIGATION The next stage of the research, led by biologists Simoni Campos Dias and Loiane Alves de Lima, took place in the UCB Genomic Sciences and Biotechnology Postgraduate Laboratory, in partnership with the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) – part of the Coral Vivo Research Network, sponsored by the Petrobras Social and Environmental Program and Arraial d’Ajuda Eco Parque.

The collected pieces of coral were ground down and put through a purification process to isolate the defensive protein of each species. After this, in vitro testing took place with these biomolecules in contact with seven bacteria available in the university laboratory: S. aureus, Streptococcus pyogenes, K. pneumoniae, E. coli, P. mirabilis, Shigella flexineri and Salmonella typhimurium. After 12 hours of contact, the elephant ear coral’s defensive substance had wiped out the KPC population. “In the very first tests we saw that the gorgonian substance had greater potential to fight KPC than the other corals. This protein may be a promising candidate for the creation of a new antibiotic to act against resistant bacteria,” says Loiane.

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In the very first tests, it was seen that the elephant ear coral’s defensive substance had greater potential than that of the other corals This research provided the basis for Loiane’s master’s thesis, “Identification of a Novel Antimicrobial Peptide from Brazilian Coast Coral Phyllogorgia dilatat,” published in scientific journal “Protein & Peptide Letters”, part of Bentham Science, a leading publisher in the field of global medicinal chemistry.

According to biologist Simoni Campos, who orientated the study, there are reports of investigations into molecules extracted from marine animals such as corals and sponges to combat other types of bacteria elsewhere in the world, but there have not been any other investigations about KPC. The research was carried out by biologists Simoni Campos Dias and Loiane Alves de Lima, of the Catholic University of Brasília

Photo: Francisco de Souza

Photo: Thinkstock

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ANTIDOTE IN ELEPHANT EAR CORAL Elephant ear coral, only found off the Brazilian coast, may be the best weapon in the development of an effective antibiotic for KPC.

Photo: Coral Vivo

OVER THE SEAS

Rocas Atoll Fernando de Noronha

BRAZIL

ELEPHANT EAR CORAL

PROCESS OF OBTAINING DEFENSIVE PROTEIN 1. COLLECTION Pieces of coral are collected from the sea and stored. In the laboratory, the material is ground down to form a raw extract ORGANIC MOLECULES

KPC SUPER-BACTERIUM PROTEINS

2. FILTRATION After grinding, the extract is filtered to separate the substances that will be researched

3. ISOLATION OF PROTEIN The substances are treated with ammonium sulfate to separate the defensive proteins

4. IN VITRO TESTING The defensive molecule is put into contact with the bacteria culture in a Petri dish. After 12 hours of in vitro testing, the KPC is exterminated by the coral’s defensive proteins

5. SEQUENCING OF PROTEINS

6. ISOLATION AND CLONING

7. PRODUCTION OF MEDICATION

The structure and functions of the proteins and their cellular processes are identified, for the next stages of development of a new medication

To isolate a small recombinant (self-replicating) DNA molecule suitable for cloning, the researchers will collect more genetic material from the coral to fully code the defensive protein sequence, to produce material to make a medication

By cloning the main genetic vector, a medication can be developed to fight infections arising from KPC

SOURCE: Catholic University of Brasília

Corals fight for survival in a competition for food, space and shelter, in a kind of rich chemical warfare featuring the release of defensive proteins “This is the first investigatory study of KPC. Furthermore, we have found that substances in elephant ear coral can also control the growth of Staphylococcus aureus, which causes skin diseases like impetigo, and Shigella flexneri, which generates dysentery, and which are also believed to contribute to infections acquired in the hospital environment,” explains Simoni.

The next step in the research is to conclude whether the defensive protein comes from the coral itself or from a bacterium that lives in association with it.

“Symbiosis means a mutually beneficial relationship in which two or more

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R$100 note Elephant ear coral (Phyllogorgia dilatata) is shown on the current R$100 note, the largest denomination note in Brazil. The Coral Vivo project’s coordinators, Clovis Castro and Débora Pires, recommended this type of coral and other marine species shown on the note to the Central Bank and Mint. The new design is part of the second family of real notes, which started to be updated in 2010 and feature endemic Brazilian species on them.

different organisms benefit from their association. For this reason, we cannot yet determine whether the substance really comes from the coral itself or from an organism that lives in association with it,” explains the biologist.

A new selection of gorgonians to complete the sequencing of defensive protein is planned in the near future, given that just half of the sequence was identified in the first phase. “We will also undertake new tests with viruses and fungi to better evaluate this substance’s potential to combat them. As well as elephant ear coral, we will also collect some other types of corals, urchins and sponges,” says Loiane.

A NEW MEDICATION There is still a long path ahead to produce a remedy for KPC, given

that these biomolecules are found in extremely small quantities in coral, limiting the speed of research. Loiane says that the study can only be applied to the human organism after the protein has been completely sequenced (a method that makes it possible to discover the structures and functions of proteins in living organisms in order to understand cellular processes), isolated and then cloned. “After time-consuming processing of the discovered drug, the compound will be cloned to make it possible to produce the active ingredient on a large scale. The medication can then be manufactured,” says Simoni.

“This entire process may take around 10 years because further studies, research and testing in the human organism will be needed, as well as approval from the authorities,” she concludes.

Watch a video in which the biologists talk about their research in the tablet version and at www.petrobras.com/ magazine Listen to excerpts from the interview with Simoni Campos Dias, of the UCB, in the tablet version and at www.petrobras.com/ magazine See images of corals from a reef in Arraial d’Ajuda, and find out about the Coral Vivo project in the tablet version and at www.petrobras.com/ magazine

NEW DIMENSIONS

Global challenges

in sustainable energy The director of the World Energy Council’s scenario forecasting area, Ged Davis plays a strategic role in global discussions of future energy scenarios. Optimistic, Davis believes that it is possible to balance development with environmental preservation and points out some paths for us to achieve universal access to energy

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n London, the economist gave an exclusive interview to Petrobras Magazine Global Connections, in which he talked about the urban reconfiguration of cities, the change in energy use culture and the sector’s challenges for sustainable economic development.

PMGC: Is it possible to reconfigure the energy system to make it more sustainable?

Davis: For five years, until 2012, I was the co-president of the Global Energy Assessment [a group of specialists formed by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis to make forecasts about the global energy

scenario]. This work involved around 300 researchers across the planet, aimed at examining what we need to do to achieve what we saw as a sustainable world. It also provided the requirements for us to achieve universal access to energy within 20 years, as well as examples of plausible trajectories for the global energy system to keep climate change within the 2°C limit established by the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change]. However, we need to consider that the energy system in itself moves slowly, with a lot of inertia. Nevertheless, what we can change is the way we see what matters in the energy world, and new ways of thinking lead to new directions in terms of policies, prices and investments.

I believe we have the tools needed to create a sustainable world. The question we should answer is whether this is really what we want and whether we are prepared to pay for it.

PMGC: What are the main priorities and challenges on the path to sustainable development?

Davis: Since 1850, the global energy system has slowly but steadily become more efficient. One aspect of this system has been de-carbonization, which is essentially reflected in the movement from wood to coal, the introduction of oil, then the introduction of natural gas and now, in some countries, the development

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Photos: Omar Bravo Melano

The economist was part of the group of experts formed to develop projections on global energy scenario

of nuclear, wind and solar power. I believe that, in most of the scenarios, this trend will continue. However, in line with historical data, the evolution in efficiency and de-carbonization may be too slow for us to achieve our current sustainability goals. We are also working with more radical scenarios, focused on the need for a fundamental energy transition. At the Global Energy Assessment, we analyzed around 40 possible futures in which the IPCC targets could be achieved. However,

“I BELIEVE WE HAVE THE TOOLS NEEDED TO CREATE A SUSTAINABLE WORLD. THE QUESTION IS WHETHER THIS IS WHAT WE WANT” — this now seems increasingly difficult to achieve in practice. Given the existing government commitments, we are on the path to an increase of 3.5 to 4°C. On the more radical side, there are scenarios emerging now, and being

seriously examined, which consider the possibility of rapid growth in the use of electric vehicles, the reconfiguration of cities and ever more sustainable urban development. This is likely to lead to rapid improvements in energy

NEW DIMENSIONS

“THERE ARE EMERGING SCENARIOS THAT CONSIDER THE RECONFIGURATION OF CITIES AND MORE SUSTAINABLE URBAN DEVELOPMENT” —

efficiency, which has been hard to achieve, but there are people starting to explore more radical futures.

PMGC: How can we feasibly achieve this urban reconfiguration in a context of cities marked by uncontrolled growth?

Davis: A lot can be done from the bottom up. There are always positive models. These issues have a long lifespan, they aren’t easy to change, and they are even more complicated when funding is limited. However, this has not stopped various developments from happening. Among cities with the most resources, London is an example.

You don’t reconfigure the whole city,

but parts of it. And when people invest in these areas, they become models. The Middle East has some very unique examples; they are models of transformation. And you have private companies developing experimental bases. They may be new electric vehicles or new smart homes. There is great scope for experimentation in new buildings.

Nevertheless, we need to take care.

There is always a limit to what people are prepared to spend on energy. There are some major challenges and we shouldn’t underestimate them, but we live in a world that is moving toward greater organization. And the biggest challenge for us is to take these new examples from the front line to the political authorities, and show them economically feasible ways of working with them.

Rule of Seven Ged Davis has developed what he calls the “rule of seven.” “When you say you are working with prospects for 2020 or 2050, people get very excited about finding out the end result,” he explains, “but in general, the truth is that when you work looking to 2030, you don’t resolve everything and then wait 15 years to see whether you got it right. You go back and revise the forecast in a few years.” The rule of seven says that, when we work on analysis with a time horizon of 20 years, we should divide this number by seven and reconsider the work around three years from now. Likewise, when we work with a time horizon of 50 years, it will probably be necessary to revise the work within seven or eight years.

PMGC: You mentioned that we may be on the path to universal access to energy in 20 years. Is this really feasible?

Davis: The Global Energy Assessment studied how we could achieve this, and estimated the need for global spending of around US$40 billion per year for 15 years. This work was largely funded by the United Nations, which established an organization called Sustainable Energy for All, which is working to achieve this goal. The key issue, of course, is to obtain the US$40 billion per year. In a way, this is a relatively small share of global energy investment. In all, we invest around US$1.2 trillion annually, so if we wanted to do it, we could.

Realistically, if we examine the World Energy Council’s scenarios, we won’t have universal access even in 2050. We still envisage something between 400 and 800 million people without access to energy, perhaps up to 1 billion, in a world that continues to grow at the current pace in terms of population. However, we shouldn’t forget that some countries have already made a lot of progress in these areas.

PMGC: How do you view the effects of pre-salt exploration in the short and medium terms?

Davis: The existence of larger petroleum resources than we had previously assumed provides an opportunity for substantial development in Brazilian production, although not without costs and challenges. The very fast development of resources is always a challenge for a country’s economic administration.

New advances, money, new exports – all this tends to shift the balance in a direction oriented to these resources.

Brazil needs to consider these issues.

In part, this is to do with the pace of development, and this is an issue that any government will have to deal very carefully with in the coming decades.

Petrobras is a major player, and I imagine that it will be for a long time, especially in the context of pre-salt.

Nevertheless, it also has all the scope of challenges of a global player.

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“THERE ARE SOME MAJOR CHALLENGES, BUT WE LIVE IN A WORLD THAT IS MOVING TOWARD GREATER ORGANIZATION” — PMGC: How can we make the leap toward a more sustainable global economic model without harming development?

Davis: We have seen great changes in the technologies we use over the last 100 years, with immense potential for the development of more efficient equipment, and perhaps new energy options. Over the last 20 years, we have seen considerable changes in our values with regard to the environment.

We have a highly inventive and welleducated emerging generation that has a good chance of successfully tackling these issues. However, let’s be clear – we need both: we want a world for our grandchildren that is as prosperous and as clean as the one we inherited, and hopefully even better. I believe that the two things are possible. If we continue to move ahead, we will need tougher and more efficient regulation in some countries. Maybe we need market incentives. Maybe we need carbon markets, as already exist in certain countries, to encourage people to take climate change more seriously. We need more work to protect the Amazon. It is this set of actions that will provide us with the capacity to deal with these issues.

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FRONTIERS

IN ANOTHER

DIMENSION Virtual reality takes company technicians into projects in the field, in a three-dimensional experience that generates savings and improves the safety of real operations

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n the 2009 movie Virtuality, by director Peter Berg, a spaceship housing a human community embarks on a 10-year voyage into space, and its main tool for remembering life on Earth is a computer that simulates reality.

Although we are in the era of ever more sophisticated videogames and 3D television sets, the first attempt to design artificial reality came out of the aerospace industry, in 1950, with the development of flight simulators by the United States Air Force. This was then followed by the entertainment sector in the following decades.

Photo: Francisco de Souza

Since the first simulators, the evolution of virtual reality technology has improved, reaching a high level of sophistication not only for entertainment applications, but especially for industrial sectors.

So-called serious games are already used in sectors as varied as education, defense and oil and gas, which depend on advanced technology and spend millions of dollars on research and development. There are sectors in which the simulation of a situation represents not just major savings, but also improved safety through the projection of hypotheses in hazardous situations.

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REAL DIMENSIONS “At Petrobras, 3D simulations have become crucial to anticipate possible problems, verify non-conformities and train people to operate equipment,” explains Luciano Pereira dos Reis, a consultant in Petrobras’ Operations and Logistics Optimization Technology Area and one of the people responsible for the Center for Visualization and Collaboration (known by Portuguese acronym NVC), located at the company’s research center (Cenpes).

Since 2010, when Petrobras opened the NVC, the simulation of situations in real environments has made it possible for technicians and specialists to interact virtually with platforms, pipelines, refineries and photovoltaic power

FRONTIERS

Photo: Geraldo Falcão / Petrobras Image Bank

SO-CALLED SERIOUS GAMES ARE ALREADY USED IN SECTORS AS VARIED AS EDUCATION, DEFENSE AND OIL AND GAS — 3D simulations have become crucial to anticipate possible problems, verify non-conformities and train people to operate equipment

plants, among other types of equipment and facilities, as well as structures in the area of geosciences, such as oil and gas reservoirs, and structures in natural environments, such as riverbeds and coastal areas.

At the NVC, technicians and specialists can thereby have the experience of being inside a project in real dimensions. It is possible, for example, to be on one of the platforms installed in Albacora Leste field, in Campos Basin, visiting each area of the production unit, or to descend risers to the seabed and stand alongside the wet Christmas trees and manifolds, or even to enter the field’s wells and reach their reservoirs. Likewise, says Luciano, one can walk through the Rio de Janeiro Petrochemical Complex (Comperj), still under construction, visualizing pipelines, valves and tanks, and checking the integrity of equipment and safety procedures, such as escape routes established for emergencies.

A TOUR THROUGH THE NVC Entering the NVC, visitors come across several laboratories and rooms, featuring a semi-immersive visualization system, an ultra-high-resolution system and a “Cave”.

The rooms reproduce three-dimensional images, with audio and video, and use cooperative systems, allowing multiple users to participate in the activities. The equipment includes digital gloves, glasses, immersion helmets, monitors and other devices, such as games controls, which assist with the immersion. The structures have a similar objective – to permit interaction between users and equipment in a virtual reality environment, in three dimensions. However, each one presents specific characteristics, in line with the type of application desired.

Adjacent to the semi-immersive visualization room, there is another room with a so-called ultra-high-resolution system – featuring a single glass screen showing a continuous image, without edges, and of extremely high resolution (with more than 40 million pixels – equivalent to approximately 20 full HD screens – generated by six ultra HD projectors). This environment permits the viewing of everything from satellite images (used in exploration and environmental areas) to microscopic or tomographic images, such as those used for rock analysis. It also makes it possible to view several documents or windows at the same time, in high resolution, which can help in analyzing reservoir simulation scenarios, for example.

The semi-immersive visualization room has a huge frontal screen, with an ultra-HD resolution (four times full HD), 7 meters wide by nearly 3 meters high, as well as a screen on the floor, also 7 meters wide and 1.5 meters long. “These dimensions allow the 3D experience to be had by around 20 technicians at a single time, sometimes from different areas, and this expands observations and the exchange of ideas about the project that is being visualized,” says Luciano.

In the “Cave,” images are projected onto five screens – one frontal, two lateral, one on the floor and one on the ceiling. This permits greater interaction between users and the environment, especially because the glasses worn for 3D visualization have a tracking system, which puts the person in the exact spatial location in relation to the real structure of the projected equipment. However, the Cave has smaller dimensions – around 6 square

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In the “Cave,” images are projected onto five screens - one frontal, two lateral, one on the floor and one on the ceiling

Photo: Francisco de Soua

The rooms reproduce three-dimensional images, with audio and video, and use cooperative systems

Photo: Geraldo Falcão / Petrobras Image Bank

FRONTIERS

AT THE NVC, TECHNICIANS AND SPECIALISTS CAN HAVE THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING INSIDE A PROJECT IN REAL DIMENSIONS — meters per screen – thereby reducing the number of people who can interact in the virtual environment. “In the Cave, users’ field of view is completely taken up by the image,” explains Luciano.

The three environments need powerful software in order for the interaction process in virtual reality to be possible.

According to the Petrobras consultant, various tools that enable this action already exist in the market, especially in the field of engineering. However, one of the challenges facing the oil industry as a whole is to create software to integrate all the segments, thereby creating an environment in which the different areas of a company can act simultaneously in viewing structures.

Photo: Francisco de Souza

CUSTOMIZED VIRTUALITY In 2007, Petrobras commissioned the Tecgraf Institute for Technical-Scientific Software Development at Rio de Janeiro Catholic University (PUC-Rio) to develop some specific software programs for the visualization rooms planned for Cenpes’ new facilities. “In the engineering area there are platform construction projects, while in the geosciences there are very specific reservoir analysis projects.

However, there has been nothing to provide an overview of it all, because they are completely different worlds. In addition, there is a lot of data, so there is the challenge of the sheer amount of this information. As a result, the software was predesigned to run in these facilities,” notes Alberto Raposo, a professor in the Information Technology Department of PUC-Rio and manager of Tecgraf’s Virtual and Augmented Reality Group.

From this demand there arose the System for Visualization in E&P (SiViEP), one of the main software programs specifically produced for Petrobras.

“In the case of SiVIEP, we had the requirement to visualize models of different areas in the same scene, something that did not exist in the market. Through it, the idea is to provide an integrated view of the entire production system, joining together the reservoir with the engineering part.

The software works in stereo, with a 3D interaction device, not the conventional mouse-keyboard interaction. It’s not designed for sitting down, but for standing up, immersed in the model.

You can interact with gestures, in a more natural way,” adds Luciano. However, to permit its wider use, in any work environment, it can also be used in desktop mode, with a conventional mouse-keyboard interface.

This software creates a virtual reality in which users “tour” the production unit, seeing equipment in its real dimensions.

From here, it is also possible to “dive” to the seabed, interacting with subsea equipment such as Christmas trees, risers and manifolds. And users can go even deeper, “entering” wells and reaching the reservoirs.

SiViEP, however, is not the only tool developed in partnership between Petrobras and Tecgraf. There are programs in the engineering and robotics areas – coordinated by analyst Ismael Humberto dos Santos, of the same company area – to potentially replace people on platforms, among other actions, and also for the optimized operation of remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs). One of the development projects now nearing completion involves training personnel to operate photovoltaic power plants.

For the consultant Luciano Pereira dos Reis, the great challenge is to develop visualization techniques and equipment with an ever greater processing capacity

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The semi-immersive viewing room allows the 3D experience to be lived for about 20 technicians at once, increasing the observations and the exchange of ideas

Photo: Francisco de Souza

THE SIMULATION OF A SITUATION REPRESENTS NOT JUST MAJOR SAVINGS, BUT ALSO IMPROVED SAFETY THROUGH THE PROJECTION OF HAZARDOUS SITUATIONS — NO WAY BACK Luciano and Raposo agree that integration between areas in virtual reality is a one-way street. The major challenge will be to develop visualization techniques and equipment with an ever greater processing capacity to handle the exponential growth in the information obtained.

In the case of Brazilian pre-salt, it will be necessary to adapt existing tools for data processing, such as for the 4D seismic surveying to be undertaken in Lula field, in Santos Basin. “The software

developed so far may be used for presalt. The difficulty with pre-salt is its size,” reinforces the PUC-Rio professor.

At Cenpes, a dedicated team in the information technology area is looking after the constant evolution of the NVC’s infrastructure, as well as supporting the operation of different environments. Processing more does not mean growing in size, though.

As Luciano notes, some years ago virtual reality visualization required large equipment costing up to US$1 million. Today, however, the materials

are ever more compact, but faster – and cheaper. “Virtual reality helmets have been around for a long time, but they used to be expensive, with low resolution and a slower response time, and it was a system more geared for individual use. In recent years this has changed. There is now equipment with excellent performance and very low costs, around US$300 or US$400, down from US$10,000 or US$20,000 for each pair of glasses years ago. Without a doubt, this will further popularize the idea of virtual reality,” predicts the Petrobras consultant.

PROFILE

A probable genius Blaise Pascal, one of the leading scholars in Probability Theory, had he been alive, would no doubt be certain that Arthur Ávila would one day win the Fields Prize, the “Nobel Prize of Mathematics.” A winner in 2014, this Brazilian mathematician is a phenomenon in the field. The winner of numerous Mathematical Olympiads since he was 12 years old, he is currently the research director of Brazil’s Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA) and France’s National Center for Scientific Research – as well as an inspiration to countless young Brazilians Photo: ©CNRS Photothèque / Sébastien RUAT

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“TO PERFORM WELL, YOU NEED TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION AND REALLY DELVE INTO THE PROBLEM” —

PROFILE

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n mathematics, one of the characteristics of a dynamic system is that it evolves over time. There are systems governed by simple, regular laws, making it easy to describe their long-term behavior, but when new factors are included in the equation, even systems governed by very simple laws can adopt very complex behaviors, resulting in unexpected conclusions.

It was due to his work in this area of research that Brazilian mathematician Artur Ávila received a Fields Medal – the highest honor in mathematics – in 2014 and is today one of the most respected researchers in the world in the field of dynamic systems research.

It all began at the age of 12, when Ávila was invited by a teacher to take part in the Mathematical Olympiads. Without yet knowing which profession he would follow, the experience, repeated many times at other editions of the contest, led him to choose his vocation. Today, at the age of 35, Ávila divides his time between Brazil, where he directs the Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), an organization that reports to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, and France, where he leads the National Center for Scientific Research. He spends around six months per year in each country.

Had he been able to look into the future, his career would perhaps have been surprising to Ávila at the time when he was a hard-working student at the Colégio de São Bento, a traditional school in Rio

The Fields Medal is considered the highest honor that a mathematician can receive

de Janeiro. He studied more than what was presented in the classroom, but did not yet know that mathematics could be a profession. In 1992, at the age of 13, invited by one of his teachers, Fabiano Pinheiro, Ávila decided to participate, for the first time and without any preparation, in the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad (known by Portuguese acronym OBM).

“When I started to take part in the Olympiads, I didn’t have any notion of what a profession was. I viewed mathematics merely as a way to learn,” he explains.

In his first competition, Ávila won the bronze medal – but not without any effort. “The competition lasted two days, with three questions per day. We had a lot of time to reflect about each question, but it wasn’t at all obvious how you would solve each one. And I didn’t understand anything. On the one hand, having contact with this competition was hard for me, but it also showed me an interesting thing: to perform well, you need to use your imagination and really delve into the problem,” he recalls.

The following year, now aware of what was awaiting him, Ávila came first in the OBM. It was the start of a trajectory that would lead him to win a Fields Prize, the most prestigious award ever won by a Brazilian mathematician. But this was still very far off for the boy who joined a master’s program at IMPA in 1995, at the age of 16, while he was still at high school, doing his schoolwork alongside his scientific development in mathematics.

“WHEN I STARTED TO TAKE PART IN THE OLYMPIADS, I DIDN’T HAVE ANY NOTION OF WHAT A PROFESSION WAS. I VIEWED MATHEMATICS MERELY AS A WAY TO LEARN” —

Olympiads The first Brazilian Mathematical Olympiad (OBM) was held in 1979 by the Brazilian Mathematics Society (SBM). Today, in conjunction with the Public School Mathematical Olympiads – an IMPA initiative that reached its 10th anniversary in 2014 – the OMB is used to select students to represent Brazil in the various international competitions in the field, such as the International Mathematical Olympiad, the Cone Sul Olympiad and the Iberoamerican Olympiad.

Photo: Courtesy of the International Mathematical Union

In 2014, around 18 million students enrolled in the Public School Mathematical Olympiads. “There are prize-winning students in the remotest municipalities, proving that mathematical talent is distributed pretty uniformly across Brazil. The increase in Brazilian participation over the years and the country’s strong performance in the ranking have been fundamental to the educational development of the subject at public schools,” says IMPA general director, César Camacho.

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The 10 martini challenge In 1980, American physicist and mathematician Barry Simon promised to buy 10 measures of James Bond’s favorite drink for whoever could explain the behavior of mathematical tools known as Schrödinger Operators. In 2005, in partnership with Russian mathematician Svetlana Jitomirskaya, Ávila solved the puzzle. Contrary to the legend, however, there were no celebratory martinis. “There are mathematical problems that have remained unsolved for a long time, and some of them have turned into folklore. In this case, people thought it would get more attention with this name regarding 10 martinis, but this isn’t the objective of anyone who works on a puzzle like this.

Ten martinis is very little reward for the effort involved.

Previous work had already made significant progress toward the solution, but my coauthor and I together solved the problem. However, I don’t particularly like martinis,” concludes Ávila.

“Even though the institute offers this flexibility, in my case it wasn’t that simple.

I found out that the mathematician Carlos Gustavo Moreira, ‘Gugu,’ an IMPA researcher and member of the Brazilian Mathematical Olympiads Commission, had taken an MA at IMPA while doing his high school education. I was a little late on the scene and I wasn’t much encouraged because I had missed the deadlines.

However, what happened was that, the same year, I attended several Olympiads, the main one being the International Mathematical Olympiad, in which I won gold. It was a better result that I had expected and, when I got back, I went to IMPA and they offered me a scientific initiation scholarship,” recounts Ávila.

Photo: ©CNRS Photothèque / Sébastien RUAT

Regarding the Fields Prize, following the exhaustive process from his initial nomination, kept secret, until the awards ceremony, Ávila sees it as a challenge overcome and prefers to focus on what is yet to come in his research. “When I found out I had received the prize, I felt relieved, because there is a lot of pressure on potential candidates, and this ends up taking away a little of our focus from the research we are doing. When the result came out, I only felt relieved and the desire to return to my object of study,” the mathematician concludes.

ART BOOK

Art

kaleidoscope The urban surrealism that transports the real to the imaginary in OSGEMEOS’ contemporary artwork combines colors and multiple dimensions that have conquered the world

A

huge 360-degree mural featuring six gigantic silos extends for 2,000 square meters, and 20 meters in height, at the Vancouver Biennale art exhibition in Canada. This public artwork, now considered the most iconic in the country, is the first incursion of Brazilian graffiti artists and twins, Otávio and Gustavo Pandolfo, on Granville Island in Vancouver. Invited

to participate in one of North America’s most important urban contemporary art exhibitions, OSGEMEOS (Portuguese for “THETWINS”), as they are known, entice the Biennale’s visitors to enter into a dialogue between two and three-dimensional worlds through the imposing artwork of their “Giants” series – large art interventions already staged in Greece, the USA, the Netherlands and Brazil.

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Photo: Vancouver Biennale

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Brothers Otรกvio and Gustavo Pandolfo created a 360-degree mural that is 20 meters high, for one of the most important urban exhibitions, the Vancouver Biennale

ART BOOK

Photo: Eduardo Ortega

“IN OUR VIEW, WATER ACTS LIKE A VEIN, SYMBOLIZING LIFE, AND IT IS ALWAYS STRONGLY PRESENT IN OUR ART” OSGEMEOS —

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Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Photo: Eduardo Ortega

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Global Connections

Photo: Eduardo Ortega

Photo: Vancouver Biennale

4.

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Influenced by 1980s hip hop culture, the brothers – who were born in the city of Cambuci, in the state of São Paulo, and who studied communications design at the Carlos de Campos State Technical School – used graffiti to win over the walls of the streets in the neighborhood where they lived, institutionalizing the OSGEMEOS double act and quickly becoming known as leaders in the São Paulo urban scene and the Brazilian graffiti style.

1. “My Feet are Floating”, 2013 2. “Got Married to Check How it is”, 2013 3. “Since Then”, 2013 4 . “Portrait”, 2013 5. Detail of panel produced for the Vancouver Biennale

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ART BOOK

Inspired by various icons of contemporary art, such as Slava Polunin (Russia), Roger Waters (United Kingdom), Aryz (Spain), Blu (Italy) and Barry McGee (United States), the twins developed multiple techniques and aids that coexist simultaneously or alternately: from drawing to graffiti and murals, from painting to kinetic images, sculptures and installations.

Their artworks intervene in cities like a kaleidoscope of images of many different origins, featuring surreal

Photo: GOL Airlines

elements overlapping with multiple highlighted and colorful dimensions.

They use combined visual languages, improvisation and a playful vision to create works that have led them to tour the world, with solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries in countries such as Cuba, Chile, the United States, Italy, Spain, England, Germany, Lithuania and Japan.

In 2014, OSGEMEOS starred in the exhibition “The Opera of the Moon” at the Galpão Fortes Vilaça venue in São Paulo. The exhibition of 30 paintings, three sculptures and a 3D video installation took one year to be designed, and it received more than 60,000 visitors

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OSGEMEOS-decorated GOL Airlines Boeing plane used to transport the Brazilian soccer team during the 2014 World Cup

THE BROTHERS’ WORK REQUIRES LETTING REASON GIVE WAY TO THE IMAGINARY. IT MEANS EMBARKING ON AN EXPERIENCE THAT GOES BEYOND THE VISUAL —

ART BOOK

Photos: Vancouver Biennale

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1, 2 and 3. The multicolor silos of the Canadian Giants series contrast with the gray landscape of the industrial district of Granville 4. OSGEMEOS at work in their studio 4.

in the space of two months. For the first time in the brothers’ career, their art was presented in an immersive environment, with poetic, ironic and critical narratives, featuring many details in the construction of images, the main characteristic of their artistic expression.

Exploring the twins’ artworks requires letting reason give way to the imaginary.

It means perceiving their subtleties and embarking on an experience that goes beyond the visual: “feel first in order to understand later,” as they say. Their combined visual languages encompass

castles, buildings, tunnels, trains and even a Boeing 737-800. In 2014, the double act fulfilled their desire to paint the airplane that transported the Brazilian soccer team during the World Cup in Brazil.

At the 2014 Vancouver Biennale, the brothers’ work continues on with their “Giants” series. The multicolor silos of the Canadian Giants series contrast with the everyday gray landscape of the industrial district of Granville, on False Creek, an inlet in downtown Vancouver.

Reflected in the water, the silos highlight

Photo: OSGEMEOS

another element of the twins’ work.

In their view, “Water acts like a vein, symbolizing life, and it is always strongly present in our art.”

Watch videos of OSGEMEOS at work on the tablet version and at www.petrobras.com/ magazine

Find out about some interesting research carried out or supported by Petrobras that may also contribute to environmental preservation Photos: Image Bank of the Tamar Project

Discoveries of species deep under water While monitoring tests of a circular hook that reduces the accidental capture of turtles by 60%, researchers from the Tamar Project ended up discovering some new species of marine animals in the depths of the Brazilian seas. They included some fish species nicknamed “jelly nose” (Ijmaia sp) and “little goat of the deep” (Peristedion sp), as well as Urophycis sp (a kind of hake) and Scyliorthinus sp, a small shark that grows to no more than 50 cm in length – and which has already been bred in captivity, with the birth of 50 pups. These discoveries were made off Forte Beach in Bahia, between 2009 and 2014.

Rubber made from Antarctic bacteria

The waste left over from palm oil extraction may be used to produce second-generation (2G) ethanol.

Research by Petrobras has revealed that the hollow stem of palm trees contains 40% cellulose and 20% hemicellulose – similar levels to sugar cane bagasse and suitable for fuel production. The new option has already been tested in a laboratory and pilot-scale testing is planned for 2015.

Schyliorthinus sp eggs, small shark that reaches up to 50 cm

Fish known as “little goat of seabed”

Using a bacterium found in Antarctica and sugar cane molasses, Petrobras is producing butanediol, a molecule used to make butadiene, which is an input for the manufacture of synthetic rubber. This technology is currently undergoing industrial testing and the research is taking place in partnership with the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece, and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro.

Yeast accelerates degradation of PET plastic bottles

Photo: André Motta de Souza / Petrobras Image Bank

New raw material for 2G ethanol

Ijmaia sp, also called "jelly nose"

Research evaluates potential of hollow stem of palm trees for the ethanol production

A study carried out by Petrobras has detected a yeast capable of degrading the polymer contained in PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles in up to 30 days.

Through this process, PET bottles – which normally take hundreds of years to degrade and currently only have recycling as an alternative means of disposal – can also be turned into a raw material for the petrochemical industry. The degradation process, at ambient pressure and temperature, results in terephthalic acid, which is used as an industrial input. The process will now be tested on a larger scale.