Brazil’s companies announce new oil discoveries

Brazil’s oil giants Petrobras and OGX announced on Monday their separate new oil discoveries in the Campos Basin off the country’s southeastern coast.

The state-controlled Petrobras said it found light oil with estimated recoverable volumes of 25 million barrels in the area.

The find was made by the drilling of the exploratory well 3-MA-32A in shallow waters in a new production area that extends to the northern part of the Marimba field in the Campos Basin.

The new find will increase Marimba’s recoverable volume by 27 percent.

Petrobras attributed the successful drilling to the revision of the area’s geological model and to the application of new seismic data interpretation techniques in the area.

As the production infrastructure is already installed in the area, the new well is expected to be interconnected to platform P-8 and to begin production by August 2010.

Petrobras said the discovery was the result of a strategy to explore new production areas which are located next to installed units, aiming to take advantage of the existing facilities.

The strategy has reduced the company’s production costs and sped up production, it added.

Petrobras, Brazil’s largest company and the third largest company in the American continent, last week reported a net profit of 7.3 billion reais (4.29 billion U.S. dollars) for the third quarter of 2009.

Meanwhile, OGX announced a discovery of oil and gas reserves of between 400 and 500 barrels in shallow waters in the southern part of the Campos Basin.

The find was drilled in the well 1-OGX-2A-RJS located in block BM-C-41, of which OGX holds the whole stake.

OGX is operating two blocks in the Campos Basin. Earlier in October, the company announced a huge find of oil and gas in neighboring block BM-C-43. With Monday’s announcement, the amount of recoverable oil and natural gas in the two blocks would reach 2billion barrels of oil.

The company’s general-director Paulo Mendonca said OGX would continue drilling operations in the area so as to meet “deeper objectives.”