MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Spain's Repsol announces oil discovery offshore Brazil

Spanish oil company Repsol anounced this week the discovery of “traces” of hydrocarbons at a deepwater well being drilled off the Brazilian coast. In an official statement Repsol said the well was completed in Block BM-S-48, located in the Santos Basin off the coast of the south-eastern state of Sao Paulo.

Exploration work in that block is being carried by a consortium in which Repsol has a 50% stake and that also includes Brazil's Petrobras and Australia's Woodside Petroleum Limited. Known as Panoramix, the well is located 185 kilometres off the coast of Sao Paulo and near Petrobras' Merluza field, Santos' most productive area. Repsol said it still does not have concrete estimates regarding the amount of oil and gas the well holds. "The initial results indicate traces of hydrocarbons ... at depths ... of between 3,760 meters and 4,602 meters," the company said. "The estimate of hydrocarbon volumes will only be possible in a stage subsequent to the preliminary evaluation phase." Repsol said in the statement that it is the company holding the second-most exploratory concessions in Brazil, with a total of 24 off Brazil's coast, some of them in the "pre-salt" area of the Santo basin. Brazil's pre-salt region is a huge area off Brazil's south-eastern coast that is some 800 kilometres long and 200 kilometres wide and which, according to the Brazilian government, may contain more than 50 billion barrels of hydrocarbons. Repsol holds several of its offshore concessions in partnership with Petrobras, a semi-public energy company that is controlled by the state and which still holds a practical monopoly on downstream activities.