Brazil finds more oil near huge offshore field

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 22, 2008
Filed at 11:24 a.m. ET
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (AP) -- Brazil's state-run oil company has struck oil in ultra-deep waters off the Atlantic coast, near the huge Tupi field it discovered last year, the company said.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA has discovered new deposits of medium-grade crude at a depth of 22,221 feet in the Santos Basin, 155 miles off the coast of the state of Sao Paulo, the company said in a statement late Wednesday.
Petrobras did not specify how much oil had been found, and its offices were closed Thursday for a national holiday.
The discovery lies in a deep-water area near Brazil's Tupi field, which Petrobras in November said could have recoverable reserves of up to 8 billion barrels of oil. Tupi was the largest oil find in the Western Hemisphere since the Cantarell field was tapped in the Gulf of Mexico in 1976.
Petrobras, which recently passed Microsoft Corp. to become the world's sixth-largest company, has a 66 percent stake in the new offshore find, while Royal Dutch Shell PLC holds a 20 percent share and Portuguese oil company Galp Energia holds 14 percent.
The oil has a density of between 25 and 28 degrees on the American Petroleum Institute scale, Petrobras said.