Petrobras Finds Oil in Offshore Pudding Well

Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said on Monday it had found "excellent quality" oil in an off-shore well known as Pudim, or pudding, in the Espirito Santo basin.

 

Drilling confirmed oil at around 4,670 meters, the company known as Petrobras said in a securities filing. A previous test had confirmed oil at between 4,305 and 4,383 meters at 35 degrees on the American Petroleum Institute (API) scale.

 

Petrobras is the operator of the consortium drilling in the basin, with a 65 percent stake. PTTEP Brasil Investimentos em Exploração e Produção de Petróleo e Gás has 20 percent, while Inpex Petróleo Santos Ltda has 15 percent.

 

Petrobras, which accounts for around 90 percent of Brazil's oil and gas output, has been criticized for its slow increase in output since the discovery of massive subsalt oil fields off the coast in 2007 and last year became the focus of a massive corruption investigation.

 

Prosecutors say engineering firms paid bribes to win Petrobras contracts, systematically overcharged the company by billions of dollars and funneled bribes to corrupt executives, vendors and political parties.