MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazil Announces Discovery of Field with 4.5 Billion Barrels of Light Oil

Haroldo Lima, ANP General Director

Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) has revealed that the 2-ANP-1-RJS well, dubbed Franco, is estimated to hold 4.5 billion barrels of recoverable light oil.

The well was drilled on open acreage a few kilometres north of Block BM-S-11. ANP has detected an oil column with around 272 metres of net pay holding 30 degrees API crude.

“It seems that this is one of the highest potential wells ever drilled in the country,” said ANP general director Haroldo Lima. The regulator now intends to carry out a formation test at the well to determine its productivity.

Franco is the second biggest pre-salt discovery made in the Santos basin so far, behind only Tupi, which Petrobras (NYSE:PBR) estimates to hold between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

A second stratigraphic well in the area was started this week. The drilling of Libra using the Diamond Offshore Drilling (NYSE:DO) ship Ocean Clipper is taking place around 32 kilometres east-northeast of Franco.

The region is part of the area that is expected to be involved in the complex onerous transfer, in which the government will cede 5 billion barrels of oil to Petrobras in order to provide leverage for a large share issue in the company.