Mensajepor SMZ » Jue Dic 23, 2010 4:54 pm
BRAZIL-OIL
Brazil's Petrobras announces new offshore oil find
17 de diciembre de 2010
Brazil's Petrobras announces new offshore oil find Ampliar fotografía
Rio de Janeiro, Dec 17 (EFE).- Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petrobras announced a new discovery of light crude in a deepwater area off the coast of the southeastern state of Espirito Santo.
The deposit is located approximately 140 kilometers (90 miles) from Vitoria, the state capital, at a water depth of some 3,850 meters (12,620 feet), making it the deepest oil and gas find thus far in the Espirito Santo Bay, the company said in a statement Thursday.
Preliminary studies indicate the oil accumulation has an American Petroleum Institute gravity of between 25 and 30 degrees, although more tests are required to verify the quality of the reserves and the size of the deposit.
The higher the gravity degree on the API scale, which ranges from 10 to 50, the less dense the oil and the more easily it can be processed to make derivatives.
The new oil find in sandstone reservoirs of the Espirito Santo Basin was made in the BM-ES-32 block, in which Petrobras is the operator with a 60 percent stake and Norway's Statoil holds the remaining 40 percent interest.
This latest discovery was made in the post-salt section of that basin.
Massive pre-salt reserves - so-named because they are located deep below the ocean floor under a layer of salt up to 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick - have been found in recent years off the coast of several Brazilian states.
Located in a 160,000-sq.-kilometer (62,000-sq.-mile) area, those fields pose enormous technical challenges but, if successfully developed, could potentially quintuple the country's current proven reserves of 14 billion barrels and transform the South American nation into a major oil power.
The Tupi field alone, the largest among those whose reserves potential has been confirmed, holds close to 8 billion barrels, according to Petrobras estimates.
It was discovered in October 2006 and has been touted as the biggest oil find since Mexico's Cantarell in 1976.