Brazil, India JV make major oil discovery
September 30, 2013, 7:37 am

Brazil currently produces about two million barrels per day nationally [AP]

The find of Petrobras and IBV Brasil in SEAL 11 off Brazil’s northeast coast, Sergipe-Alagoas basin could be the biggest oil discovery of the year.

IBV Brasil is a joint venture between India’s Bharat Petroleum Corporation and Videocon Industries.

Petrobras CEO Maria das Graças Foster said the two partners have made a “beautiful” oil discovery, and it will produce a minimum 100,000 barrels of petroleum a day starting in 2018.

Brazil currently produces about two million barrels per day nationally.

Two prospects in the SEAL 11 area, Farfan and Muriu, are expected to be developed as a single or integrated unit, with at least one floating production, storage and offloading ship (FPSO) producing oil and gas from the area in 2018, Foster said.

Officials said the new find could make the region the country’s biggest new oil frontier since Brazil’s huge sub-salt discoveries off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in 2007.

Reuters quoted an official source as saying that recent drilling also suggests that a giant natural gas field may extend well beyond SEAL-11 with enough gas to supply all of Brazil’s current needs “for decades”.

Meanwhile, the government plans to auction production rights for Libra, Brazil’s biggest-ever oil discovery, on October 21.

Eleven foreign oil firms, including China National Petroleum Corporation, India’s ONGC Videsh and Malaysia’s Petronas, have paid more than $900,000 each to participate in the auction.

Brazil’s new auction rules stipulate that winning bids will be determined by the slice of profit oil companies are willing to share with the government.

Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff announced during the recent protests that the government will resubmit a bill to Congress demanding oil royalties be invested exclusively in education.

Source: Agencies