MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil announces more oil and gas proven reserves

Brazil's oil and gas government managed corporation Petrobras announced the proven presence of oil in a well south of the Santos Basin, in sandy reservoirs above the salt layer. The discovery confirms the good light oil potential in the shallow water portion of the basin, said Petrobras in a brief release from last Friday.

The well identified as 1-BRSA-658-SPS (1-SPS-57), hit oil in block S-M-1289, belonging to concession BM-S-40, for which Petrobras holds 100% of the stake. This block is located some 200 kilometers off the coast of the State of São Paulo at a depth of 274 meters and is 9.3 kilometers away from the discovery that was made by well 1-SPS-56, at the Tiro prospect, as announced last May. According to Petrobras the reservoirs are sandy type and are located at a depth of approximately 2,060 meters, similar to those found recently by well 1-BRSA-607-SPS (1-SPS-56). Reservoir productivity will be assessed immediately by means of a Lined Well Formation Test. The dimension of the discoveries made by these wells will only be defined after the Assessment Plan, which will be submitted to the National Petroleum Agency (NPA), as provided for in the BM-S-40 concession agreement. However even when on preliminary assessment phase, based on the two wells and on the anomalies of the seismic data, Petrobras estimates the volume of recoverable oil in this area in approximately 150 million barrels of oil equivalent. In a previous release from last week Petrobras announced that it had complete drilling of well Jupiter in block BM-S-24, which confirmed the existence of a large natural gas and light oil field in the pre-salt layer. The consortium, responsible for the exploration of this block in the Santos Basin, is formed by Petrobras (80%) and Galp Energia (20%). The drilling confirmed the discovery that was announced on January 21 2008. Well 1-BRSA-559A-RJS (1-RJS-652A) is located 290 kilometers off the coast of the State of Rio de Janeiro and 37 km east of the Tupi area, at 2,187 meters from the water line. The final depth that was reached was 5,773 meters from the surface of the sea. The drilling of Jupiter had been interrupted for operational reasons since January but was later further deepened and proved the continuity of the natural gas and light oil reservoirs, in addition to a high content of Carbon Dioxide (CO2). Several oil samples were collected and are currently under analysis in Petrobras' Research Center (CENPES) in order to possible better assess the relative percentages of its components. The CO2 preliminarily identified will not be discharged to the atmosphere but rather re-injected, contributing to increase the oil Recovery Factor in these reservoirs. The oil and natural gas potential of the Jupiter discovery, which proved the significant thickness of the porous reservoirs, has yet to be assessed by NPA.