Brazil says new oil field may be huge discovery

BRAZIL: EXCITEMENT ABOUT the potential of Brazil as a massive new source of oil and gas intensified yesterday after a senior energy ministry official declared the newly found Carioca field could have 33 billion barrels in place.

The comments, by Haroldo Lima, head of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, that the country was harbouring an oil find that vied with the largest in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, sent the price of shares in British exploration company BG up 5 per cent.

The news of the discovery also contradicts pronouncements that growth in world oil production may have peaked.

Mr Lima told an industry conference that Petrobras, the national oil company partnered by BG, "may have discovered a huge petroleum field that could contain reserves as large as 33 billion barrels, amounting to the world's third-largest reservoir".

Paradoxically, Brazil is at the centre of the biofuels revolution because the government encouraged motorists to switch to crop-based fuels such as ethanol before anyone else when the country was trying to cut its oil import bills.

While Brazil now exports ethanol, the country is beginning to believe that it could become one of the world's great future crude oil exporters and might in future join the Opec oil cartel.

Petrobras has just spent more than $8 billion signing up new rigs to explore in the very deep waters off Brazil. - ( Guardian service )

© 2008 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times