MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Consortium announces major ‘high quality’ oil discovery off the Brazilian coast

A first appraisal indicated a production of 28.000 bpd

Repsol, Spain's biggest oil group said Monday it has made a new oil discovery off the coast of Brazil together with Chinese partner Sinopec, Britain's BG Group and Brazil's Petrobras.

The field containing “high quality” crude was discovered nearly 300 kilometres off the coast of Sao Paulo at a depth of 4.830 metres, it said in a statement.

Repsol and its partner Sinopec have a 25% stake in the consortium which is led by Petrobras which has 45%. The remaining 30% is held by BG Group.

BG said an extended well test on the Carioca find indicated it could produce at 28.000 barrels of oil per day, beating its earlier view.

“Given the promising results at Carioca, the consortium intends to do more appraisal work to further evaluate the area's full potential,” BG said in a statement on Monday.

Brazil's National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels extended the deadline by which time the field must be declared commercial to December 2013 giving the partners involved in the field an extra two years to appraise it.

“There is no change to the consortium's plans and schedule for development and production,” added BG.

For Repsol it has been an interesting year since last June it announced the discovery of two grades of “good quality” oil about 190 kilometres off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Last week, Repsol announced its largest-ever oil discovery, saying it had discovered nearly a billion barrels in unconventional oil and gas in Patagonia, a find that doubles its proven reserves in Argentina.

Repsol has a significant portfolio of projects in Brazil, including a producing field, a block under development, two planned pilot projects and 14 exploration blocks of great potential.