MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petrobras to concentrate all investments in pre-salt deposits

CEO Gabrielli said the company was going through a “fantastic moment”

Brazilian government managed oil and gas company Petrobras will freeze overseas investments as the company concentrates on its primary role to develop recently discovered offshore oil reserves, CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli said Thursday.

Quoted by the Brazilian Estado news agency, Gabrielli told investors during a presentation in Paris that “international investments are frozen because the volume of opportunities in Brazil is so large”. Gabrielli, however, noted that the company would maintain its 174.4 billion US dollars 2009-2013 strategic plan, which was released in January.

Petrobras currently plans to invest 15.9 billion USD in its international operations, with 12.6 billion headed for exploration and production. The company expects international output of 341,000 barrels of oil equivalent by 2013.

On Wednesday Petrobras announced the discovery of another deposit of oil and natural gas in Brazil's Santos Basin. The find was made together with BG Group and Repsol after a fourth well was drilled in the BM-S-9 block off the country's south-eastern coast.

The Abare Oeste field is next to the Carioca, Guara and Iguacu fields, where the company has already reported the existence of crude.

Petrobras made the announcement as CEO Gabrielli met investors in New York to defend President Lula da Silva's plan to increase control over the energy industry through regulations being debated in Congress.

The rules would allow the government to boost its stake in Petrobras and make the company the sole operator of so-called pre-salt fields, which may more than double Brazil's proven reserves in three years.

“We are in a fantastic moment” Gabrielli was quoted by Bloomberg News. Brazil has the world's biggest potential reserves and the ability “to develop the whole supply chain to provide goods and services to the oil industry,” he said.

Petrobras's proven oil reserves may more than double to as much as 35 billion barrels in the next two to three years from about 14 billion currently, Gabrielli underlined