Oil Discovery in Brazil
A huge offshore oil discovery could raise Brazil's petroleum reserves by a whopping 40 percent and boost this country into the ranks of the world's major exporters, officials said according to an AP report. The government-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said the new "ultra-deep" Tupi field could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable light crude, sending Petrobras shares soaring and prompting predictions that Brazil could join the world's "top 10" oil producers. Petrobras says the Tupi field, off Brazil's southeastern Atlantic coast, has between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels -- equivalent to 40 percent of all the oil ever discovered in Brazil.
Geological Study May Reveal That Azeri Sector Can Offer As Much Gas As Oil
Closer geological study of the Azeri sector of the Caspian could reveal a greater tendency towards gas than oil in the sea's deep-water section, the chief geologist of Azeri state oil company SOCAR said. If true, the speculations of Khoshbakht Yusifzade, who is the country's leading expert and one of four SOCAR vice presidents, could confirm growing suspicions that Azerbaijan holds as much gas as oil, if not more. Azeri specialists have now studied almost all of the former Soviet republic's onshore and shallow-water offshore structures and have discovered that is where the bulk of the oil lies, Yusifzade said. "Our previous research and experience in Azerbaijan allows us to assume that in the Caspian, the deeper the water, the more likely it is that we'll discover gas seams," he said.
