Petroleum: Brazil to have one of the world's ten largest oil reserves

The president at Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras, Sergio Gabrielli, estimated that the oil and natural gas bed discovered by the company in the Santos Basin is going include Brazil among the world's ten largest oil producing countries. According to him, the reserves, estimated in between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels, will ensure the country the eighth or ninth position in the ranking.
After the volume announced 8th November at field Campo de Tupi, said Gabrielli, Brazil now has reserves similar to those of Nigeria and Venezuela. With reserves totaling 14.4 billion barrels of oil and natural gas, Brazil currently ranks 24th in the global ranking of producer countries. "This is extremely good news," he claimed.
According to the Exploration and Product director at Petrobras, Guilherme Estrela, Campo de Tupi might go into commercial operation within up to six years. In 2011, though, a test phase for extraction will begin, with a production of 100,000 barrels of oil and gas per day.
Presently, the area of the new reserve at the Santos Basin counts on 15 exploratory wells that demanded investments of US$ 1 billion in the last two years. In order to reach these wells, the state-owned company drilled through 2,000 meters of salt for more than one year. The first well alone cost US$ 240 million.
Nevertheless, to Gabrielli, the reserves might be even larger. He claimed that extraction of oil and gas at between 5,000 and 7,000 meters of depth, at the same layer in which the bed was discovered at Campo de Tupi, might add from 70 billion to 107 billion barrels of the products to the Brazilian reserves. To that extent, the company needs to intensify extraction at those depths in the coastline ranging from the state of Espírito Santo to the state of Santa Catarina.
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