MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Petrobras confirms oil off the Amapá coast but cannot yet estimate the volume

Lula, who attended the event, highlighted the significance of the find for the country's future oil production but said it does not alter Brazil's strategy on renewable energy

Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras confirmed on Monday the presence of oil in the Morpho exploratory well, located in ultra-deep waters off the northern state of Amapá, in the Foz do Amazonas basin. The company cautioned that it cannot yet estimate the volume found or the viability of commercial production.

“There is oil, there is a discovery. We still do not know how much,” said the company's chief executive, Magda Chambriard, at an event in Oiapoque alongside President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The announcement confirms and refines one made last Friday, when Petrobras reported the identification of hydrocarbons in the well through wireline logs and rock indications.

Chambriard said around a thousand metres remain to be drilled to reach the bottom of the well and that the operation will be completed within 15 to 20 days. A delimitation phase will then begin, aimed at measuring the reservoir's extent and recoverable volume. A find in an exploratory well does not in itself amount to a commercially exploitable reserve.

The Morpho well lies some 175 kilometres off the Amapá coast and around 500 from the mouth of the Amazon, in a water depth of 2,886 metres. Petrobras operates block FZA-M-59 with a 100% stake, acquired in the eleventh bidding round of the National Petroleum Agency in 2013 under a concession regime. According to Chambriard, the company has invested some 3 billion dollars since the current exploratory campaign in the region began in August last year, at an operating cost of close to a million dollars a day.

Drilling in this basin was subject to a lengthy licensing process. The Brazilian Institute of the Environment initially rejected the request in 2023 and granted the permit in October 2025. Petrobras plans to drill three more wells in the same block and five in adjacent areas, subject to new environmental authorisations, and has already filed the corresponding applications.

Brazil's Equatorial Margin belongs to the same geological province as the fields developed in Guyana and Suriname, which explains industry interest in the area. Petrobras frames the exploration within its strategy of replenishing reserves.

Lula, who attended the event, highlighted the significance of the find for the country's future oil production but said it does not alter Brazil's strategy on renewable energy. “The country will continue to be the country of biofuel innovation and will continue to be very big on the question of renewable fuel,” he said. According to the president, Brazil will maintain investment in biofuels and other renewable sources while assessing the potential of new oil areas.