ABSTRACTTwelve years after the first significant discovery in the pre-salt layer, pre-salt fields represent about 55% of Brazil’s oil production. Following an economic recession, an increase in the country credit risk, and the 2014 oil price collapse, we analyze the production of petroleum in the pre-salt zones by identifying: the break-even price (BEP), and the effect of oil price, price volatility, productivity, and country risk on wells drilled. To identify these effects on the number of wells drilled into the pre-salt zone, we estimate 100 cointegrating vector autoregression models that specify 10 measures of price and 10 break-even prices. The most accurate model measures oil prices using WTI, has a BEP of $62 per barrel (2018 prices). Results indicate the negative and positive effect, respectively, of raising the country risk and productivity on the number of development wells drilled into the pre-salt zone.