Petrobras finds light oil in a well south of the Santos Basin

Petrobras has discovered light oil in a well south of the Santos Basin off the Brazilian southeast coast. The well is located 280km off the coast of Sao Paulo state, about 15km away from the Tiro and Sidon area, in water depths of 400 metres. Petrobras announced the find on Tuesday [16th November], but did not give an estimate of how much oil the find might contain.

It made the discovery at the S-M-1352 block in the BM-S-41 concession in which it has an 80 per cent stake, after transferring a 20 per cent stake to its co-operative partner Karoon. The company said it was continuing to drill in the same well, with the possibility it could find more reserves at a greater depth.

Petrobras said the discovery proves the success of the exploratory strategy of searching for new sources of oil and gas in the southeast of Santos Basin, where a series of fields have been discovered already.

Source: Xinhua

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Libra field may contain as much as 16 billion barrels of oil

The Head of Brazil's National Petroleum Regulator (ANP) Haroldo Lima has said that the offshore Libra field may contain as much as 16 billion barrels of oil, twice the previous estimates, which would make it the biggest crude oil discovery in the Americas in over three decades.

The Libra field located in the Santos Basin off the coast of south-eastern Brazil may have 7.9 billion to 16 billion barrels of oil. The Brazilian government owns 100 per cent of the Libra field. Oil reserves of 16 billion barrels would make the Libra field twice as big as nearby Tupi field, which has estimated reserves of between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels.

Libra and Tupi, both in Brazil's Santos Basin, are located in a region known as the pre-salt, which runs 800 kilometers (500 miles) off the coast, holding oil deposits beneath a layer of salt resting as deep as 3,000 meters (9,800 feet) beneath the ocean surface and another 5,000 meters below the seabed.

Source: Bloomberg

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