This dissertation investigates a system based in genetic algorithms and cultural algorithms, applied to the development process of a petroleum field. The development of a petroleum field consists in the placement of wells in an already known and delimited petroleum reservoir, which allows maximizing the Net Present Value. A placement of wells defines the quantity and position of the producing wells, the injecting wells, and the wells type (horizontal or vertical) to be used in the exploration process. The objective of this work is to evaluate the performance of Genetic Algorithms and Cultural Algorithms as decision support methods on the optimization of production alternatives in petroleum reservoirs. Determining the new petroleum wells location in a reservoir is a complex problem that depends on the properties of the reservoir and on economic criteria, among other factors. In order to an optimization process to be applied to this problem, it s necessary to define a target function to be minimized or maximized by the process. In the given problem, the target function to be maximized is the Net Present Value (NPV). In order to establish the NPV, the exploration cost correspondent to the estimated reservoir petroleum volume is deducted. The complexity of the petroleum s production profile implies on the use of reservoirs simulators for this estimation. In this way, a reservoir simulator is an integrant part of the evaluation function. The research work was developed in four phases: a study about the petroleum exploration field; a study about the applied computational intelligence models in this area; the definition and implementation of a genetic and cultural model for the development of petroliferous fields and the case study. The study about the petroleum exploration field involved all the necessary theory for the building of the target function. In the study about the computational intelligence techniques, the main concepts about the Genetic Algorithms and Cultural Algorithms applied in this dissertation were defined. The modeling of Genetic and Cultural Algorithms consisted in applying them so that, given a petroleum reservoir, the system is capable of evolve and find configurations (quantity, location and wells type) that achieve greater Net Present Values. The results obtained in this work, indicate that the use of Genetic Algorithms and Cultural Algorithms in the development of petroleum fields is a promising alternative.