Brazil's state-owned oil giant Petrobras said Wednesday it had discovered a "good quality" crude oil reserve in the Santos basin.

"The presence of reservoirs of excellent quality in carbonate rocks below the salt layer has been confirmed," the company said.

Petrobras said the offshore oil reserve was discovered at the Florim well in the Santos Basin, at a depth of 2,009 meters, 206 km off the south coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Drilling had reached a depth of 5,498 meters and would proceed to 6,100 meters, Petrobras said.

Once drilling is complete, Petrobras will carry out tests at some six wells which have good quality oil reserves in its so-called Rights Transfer Agreement area, to assess the productivity of the reservoirs and determine if they are commercially viable.

Under the Rights Transfer Agreement, Petrobras is entitled to produce up to 319 million barrels of oil equivalent in this area.

The exploratory phase is expected to end by September 2014, when sales of the crude oil will be declared.

The discovery is one of the latest in the deep waters of Atlantic, which will place Brazil among the world's main exporters of crude oil over the coming years. Endi

Go to Forum >>0 Comment(s)