Brazil Oil Find May Be World's 3rd Largest

Deep-Water Area Off Rio De Janeiro Coast Could Contain As Much As 33 Billion Barrels Of Oil

(AP)  A deep-water exploration area off Brazil's coast could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil, the head of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency said Monday. That would make it the world's third-largest known oil reserve.

Haroldo Lima cautioned that his information on the field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro is unofficial and needs to be confirmed.

The state-run Petrobras oil company declined comment on what would be the planet's largest oil find in decades, and its shares moved wildly in positive territory after Lima made the comments.

By early afternoon, the company's American depository shares were up 8.5 percent in New York, or $9.54, to $122.39. Petrobras shares in Brazil went on a wild rise, fluctuating between 2 percent and 7 percent higher and settling and up nearly 5 percent in late afternoon trading.

Lima told reporters that Petrobras "may have discovered a huge petroleum field that could contain reserves large as 33 billion barrels," amounting to the world's third-largest reserve, according to his spokesman, Luiz Fernando Manso.

Manso did not provide any details about where Lima got his information, except to say it came from "non-official, non-confirmed sources."

Lima's agency regulates Brazil's oil industry, and his comments appeared to represent confirmation of what experts have long suspected: That extremely deep exploration areas hundreds of miles (kilometers) off the nation's coast may hold potentially huge reserves.

Brazil's current proven oil reserves are 11.8 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Department. The U.S. has 21.8 billion barrels in proven reserves.

"You're talking about a reserve the size of total U.S. reserves," said Tim Evans, an analyst with Citigroup Inc. in New York. "It's a big, big number."

If proven, the oil in the Carioca exploration area would also be five times larger than the Tupi oil field, whose estimated reserves of 8 billion barrels were announced by Petroleo Brasileiro SA in November. Petrobras also announced a blockbuster find of natural gas in February in an Atlantic Ocean field nicknamed Jupiter.

Industry experts say the Tupi and Jupiter fields alone could turn Brazil into a major oil and gas exporter and lead to it joining OPEC.

Petrobras is renowned for its deep-water drilling ability, and is widely regarded as one of the best state-run oil companies in the world.

Brazil became self-sufficient in oil production in 2006 but must import light crude oil for the refined products it needs. The country produces - and exports - mostly heavy crude oil, which has to be mixed with the light oil in refineries.

While the potential Brazil find could add significant supplies to a global oil market many see as tight, it would likely take the better part of a decade before any of oil finds its way to market. The site will need to be studied further, and drilling platforms must be designed, built and transported before it can start producing oil.

However, it does cast new doubt on peak oil theory, which postulates that world oil demand will soon outpace supply.

It is impossible to say whether or not more 33-billion-barrel oil fields exist under the sea, Evans said.

"Nobody really has data on what's out there in the middle of the ocean," Evans said.

Oil prices were unaffected by the news. Light, sweet crude for May delivery rose $1.07 to $111.21 a barrel in afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, about where prices were trading before the Petrobras announcement.

[dzapple]

"it would likely take the better part of a decade before any of oil finds its way to market."

ONLY A DECADE

[enriquecaliente]

As soon as they can come up with a scenario where Brazilian terrorist have crossed the boarder and attacked us. We will dust off the Manifest Destiny routine and consume South America for it''s own good.

This way we control not only the oil, but the cocaine as well. It''s all about the Poppy fields in Afghanistan. Don''t let anyone tell you different.

[quetzal0666]

SharnCedar ...
you cant be serious?

[htboy08]

Thats all we need!This could be bad.

[termtex01]

Better watch out, Brazil. Hugo Chavez won''t hesitate to ''nationalize'' you as well, to get his grubby paws on that oil.

[lawyertom1]

The key word is "may". There is also the difficulty in recovery.

[ranger1948]

I still say price a barrel of wheat to the arabs for the same price they sell us a barrell of oil. Whne their oil drys up let them sell sand.

[tawpdawg11]

BISMARCK, N.D. -- The government estimated Thursday that up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.
The U.S. Geological Survey called it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.
The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, in three layers. About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. Companies use pressurized fluid and sand to break pores in the rock and prop them open to recover the oil.
North Dakota''''s entire oil production hit 137,000 barrels a day in January, the latest figures available. Industry officials believe the state''''s record production of 148,500 barrels a day, set in 1984, will be surpassed this year.
Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., said he believes the Geological Survey''''s assessment of how much oil can be recovered in the Bakken may be a little on the high side.
"That''''s a lot of zeros," Kessel said Thursday.
Kessel said his company was the first to get a producing well in the Bakken in North Dakota three years ago. The company now has about 20 producing wells.
The report released Thursday by USGS was done over the past 18 months.



Posted by thcarson



You got OIL in No. Dakota? ATTACK!!! SHOCK !!! AWE !!!

[tawpdawg11]

You got OIL there? ATTACK!!! SHOCK!!! AWE!!!

[element51]

I wonder how long it will take bush to totally p*ss of the Brazilians so they won''t sell us any of their oil. Hopefullly he''ll be gone before they start to drill.

[hungry1968]

How ironic that a country that is already energy independent, is now going to be one of the biggest oil exporters in the world.

Bush is drooling and planning the invasion of South America as we speak.

[ajmarine1]

1

[aaabee-2009]

Gotta love the tree hugging liberal way Posted by gwno1 at 05:07 PM : Apr 14, 2008

Bite me, Mr. NO OILRIGS IN MY BACKYARD.

Because that is where they would be. Not in the yards of any of the Uber-rich, just the less than rich, like you, GOP-shill.

So you like pollution? Smog? Contaminated soil? Contaminated water? Just not in your backyard? Then whose? In the back yards of the rest of us?

Development run amok could care less about you and what you see when you look out your window. Corporations are already polluting the drinking water, the air, and it takes armies of lawyers to get them to comply with the shaky environmental laws already on the books. Please, lets let them free to really do what they want.

Environmentalists know the value of clean water, clean air, and clean soil, these add up to the survival of the human race after all. They fight to slow a loosing battle against rampant development, and they fight not just for themselves but for you selfish gimme-today people too.

You want drilling, you sure do. Everywhere but in your back yard, right? Well guess what....the oil rig isn''t in your back yard now BECAUSE environmentalists are protecting a water shed or weighing pollution vs. residents in the area or protecting valuable top soil for tomorrow.

What are YOU doing to leave the world a better place?

[inventagod]

Oh, GREAT!
Now we have to worry about Bu$hCo putting a Brazillion guys with boxcutters into some planes and having them attack New York...

[thcarson-2009]

BISMARCK, N.D. -- The government estimated Thursday that up to 4.3 billion barrels of oil can be recovered from the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota and Montana, using current technology.
The U.S. Geological Survey called it the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever assessed.
The Bakken Formation encompasses some 25,000 square miles in North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, in three layers. About two-thirds of the acreage is in western North Dakota, where the oil is trapped in a thin layer of dense rock nearly two miles beneath the surface. Companies use pressurized fluid and sand to break pores in the rock and prop them open to recover the oil.
North Dakota''s entire oil production hit 137,000 barrels a day in January, the latest figures available. Industry officials believe the state''s record production of 148,500 barrels a day, set in 1984, will be surpassed this year.
Donald Kessel, vice president of Houston-based Murex Petroleum Corp., said he believes the Geological Survey''s assessment of how much oil can be recovered in the Bakken may be a little on the high side.
"That''s a lot of zeros," Kessel said Thursday.
Kessel said his company was the first to get a producing well in the Bakken in North Dakota three years ago. The company now has about 20 producing wells.
The report released Thursday by USGS was done over the past 18 months.

[liberalme]

Lets just keep Exxon Mobile out of the mix!

[bgwinnett]

hooray! Peak Oil might have been delayed by one more year with this.

[shanev137]

Hilarious. CBS is having to delete my posts now for telling the truth about big oil.

[ajmarine1]

A new black gold rush is under way, this time in North Dakota. The potential payoff is huge -- up to 100 billion barrels of oil. That%u2019s twice the size of Alaska%u2019s reserves and potentially enough to meet all U.S. oil needs for two decades.

Until now, the obstacles to production seemed overwhelming. The crude oil is locked away in rocks that are buried miles underground in the Bakken Play, a field that stretches into Montana and Saskatchewan, Canada.

But times have changed. High oil prices and new technology make it worth the effort. Computer analysis and remote sensing systems, plus smart drills that can probe horizontally or snake left and right, vastly improve the odds of locating new pools and putting them into production. And though oil is unlikely to remain priced at current stratospheric levels, prices won%u2019t drop to much lower levels, which happened several times since the 1970s, and cause new exploration to dry up. Even if prices fell by half, many barrels of oil could still be produced -- profitably -- from the region.

[liberalme]

Awwww come on--if we found oil right here in America, Bush would have to move to Paraguay and invade us!!