RIO DE JANEIRO, Sept 6 (Reuters) - Lifting costs for theSantos basin in Brazil's offshore pre-salt oil play should reachan all time low of $5 per barrel, but the timeline for reachingit will depend on the development of the transfer-of-rightsarea, an executive of Brazilian oil giant Petroleo Brasileirotold reporters on Wednesday.
Oil majors have plowed big money into Brazil, LatinAmerica's top producer, to lock in stakes to the offshorepre-salt layer, where billions of barrels of oil are trappedunder a thick layer of salt.
The vastness of the resources helps reduce lifting costs,which have already slipped to $6 to $7 per barrel in the Santosbasin's Lula field, according to Joelson Falcao Mendes,Petrobras chief for oil production in ultra deepwaters.
The field, Brazil's most productive, averages 879,000barrels of oil per day, and is operated by Petrobras in aconsortium with Royal Dutch Shell and Portugal's Galp.
But reaching $5 in Santos will depend on the pace ofdevelopment of the transfer-of-rights area, which wastransferred by the government in 2010 to Petrobras to extract 5billion barrels of oil and gas there.
However, the government and Petrobras are still squabblingover the value of the area, also located in the Santos basin.
Mendes, who was named to the committee negotiating the valueof the area with the government, did not offer further detailsabout how it would affect lifting costs. He spoke to reportersaboard the P-66 platform in the Lula field.
Mendes made the comments as white-capped waves rocked P-66,which began producing last year and has the capacity to process150,000 barrels of oil daily.
However, Mendes said that the P-67 platform, which wasscheduled to begin production between October and December ofthis year in the northern part of the Lula field, could bedelayed into January.
He defended the time it took Petrobras to develop thelogistically complex areas, noting that the consortium wasfinishing the development phase for Lula, which was discoveredin 2006.
"If there hadn't been some construction delays for thesystems, the timings would be even better. But regardless, theyare pretty impressive and extremely competitiveinternationally," he said.(Reporting by Alexandra AlperEditing by Phil Berlowitz)
