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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 02:57 PM
Original message
Brazil oil field could be huge find
Source: Associated Press

Posted on Mon, Apr. 14, 2008
Brazil oil field could be huge find
By ALAN CLENDENNING - AP Business Writer

SAO PAULO, Brazil --A deep-water exploration area could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil, an amount that would nearly triple Brazil's reserves and make the offshore bloc the world's third-largest known oil reserve, a top oil official said Monday.

National Petroleum Agency President Haroldo Lima cautioned that his information on the field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro is unofficial and needs to be confirmed - but his comments sent shares of the state-run Petrobras oil company soaring in New York and Sao Paulo.
(snip)

If proven, the oil in the exploration area called both Carioca and Sugarloaf Mountain by analysts 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.




Read more: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/606/story/416469.html
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flvegan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:00 PM
Response to Original message
1. Shh...nobody tell W.
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LeftCoast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:03 PM
Response to Original message
2. Oh goody! Just what we need...more CO2!
:bounce:
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Mountainman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:04 PM
Response to Original message
3. Oh hell! Now Cheney will want to nuke Brazil the newest axis of evil country!
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amandabeech Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:13 PM
Response to Original message
4. That's the maximum amount, and it includes oil and its gas equivalent.
At that depth it could be a lot of gas and relatively little oil. It will be difficult and very expensive to get it out of there, too.

With that, keep in mind that the world uses about 85,000,000 barrels a day 365 days a year. The U.S. uses 20-21,000,000 a day, 365. I don't have a calculator on me, so you do the math.

Those 33 billions max don't look like as much, do they?
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daleo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:39 PM
Response to Reply #4
8. Using your figures, 1.06 years world supply, 4.31 years U.S. supply
Assuming they could get all they oil out, which is doubtful. Also, it takes energy to get gas/oil out of the ground and to market, so that cuts it down some more.
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amandabeech Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 05:43 PM
Response to Reply #8
12. Exactly.
The EROEI or net energy would be poor. Getting that stuff out would be a last ditch effort. I don't think that we're quite there yet.
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robcon Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:16 PM
Response to Original message
5. Great News!
n/t
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mac2 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:23 PM
Response to Original message
6. Thanks for the information
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Javaman Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:25 PM
Response to Original message
7. "could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil"...
the operative word is..."could".

These various predictions have come and gone and all have petered out.

I'm not holding my breath.

But then again, if it is, so what? all it does is give those weathly mother fucking oil bastards more money and creates more pollution.

Why is a big oil field find a good thing?
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Phred42 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
9.  Bet we find some Freedom hating Goucho-fascist terrorists there
that need to be invaded
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Judi Lynn Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 03:58 PM
Response to Original message
10. Petrobras shares in Argentina soar on oil find
Petrobras shares in Argentina soar on oil find
Mon Apr 14, 2008 8:16pm BST

BUENOS AIRES, April 14 (Reuters) - Shares of Brazil's state-owned Petrobras soared nearly 7 percent on Monday on the Argentine stock market following news the company may have made the world's biggest oil discovery in 30 years.

The offshore find, known as Carioca and made in partnership with Repsol-YPF (REP.MC: Quote, Profile, Research)(REP.BA: Quote, Profile, Research) and BG Group (BG.L: Quote, Profile, Research), could contain 33 billion barrels of oil equivalent, said Harold Lima, the head of Brazil's National Petroleum Agency.

Petrobras (APBR.BA: Quote, Profile, Research)(PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research)(PBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) officials had no immediate comment.

Buenos Aires-listed shares of the company surged to 192.5 pesos at 4:00 p.m. local time, moving a volume of $15 million, the equivalent of 36.5 percent of total value on the MerVal.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/allBreakingNews/idUKN1438294220080414?rpc=401&
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BR_Parkway Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Apr-14-08 04:27 PM
Response to Original message
11. ** Breaking ** Bush announces WMD program detected in Brazil
and places country on Terror Sponsor list. VP Cheney was quoted as stating that "the bombings will begin as soon as we're finished in Iran"
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SteinbachMB Donating Member (304 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 06:13 AM
Response to Original message
13. The Peak Oil
...chart people have more work to do.
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Nihil Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 07:40 AM
Response to Reply #13
14. You really have no concept of scale do you? (n/t)
:eyes:
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SteinbachMB Donating Member (304 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 09:04 AM
Response to Reply #14
16. You really have no concept
...of a barb, do you?
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hatrack Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 10:46 AM
Response to Reply #16
21. When there's no point, it's not really much of a "barb", now is it?
:eyes:
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Delphinus Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 08:43 AM
Response to Reply #13
15. Did you reach message #4
upthread? Read it and see if that makes things clearer.
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SteinbachMB Donating Member (304 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 09:05 AM
Response to Reply #15
18. Nah.
You didn't get my post at all. Nevermind.
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NickB79 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 01:44 PM
Response to Reply #13
23. An unproven field, up to 1 year's worth of global consumption, that won't come online for 5+ years
Yeah, that's gonna make a real big blip on the Peak Oil charts :sarcasm:
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0007 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 09:04 AM
Response to Original message
17. I can see the vampires sharpening their teeth now.
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legin Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 10:21 AM
Response to Original message
19. More info..
(snip)

The American Petroleum Institute (API) defines oil by its density. Light oil has a density of 38 to 34 API. Medium oil has a density of 32 API, and heavy oil has a density of 29 API or less. The light oils are the most energy efficient and the easiest to refine. The heaver the oil the more like tar it is. West Texas light sweet crude has been a standard by which oils have been compared for many years.

Preliminary results from Brazil's Santos Basin fields give a density ranging from 27API in the Carioca field to 30 API in the Tupi field.

(snip)


There are several major production challenges in the Santos Basin. One is the drilling in such deep water. Another problem is the extent and type of cap rock covering the oil layer. In Ghawar (Saudi Arabia), the cap rock was a relatively inert anhydrite. However, in the Santos Basin the cap rock is corrosive salt. Drilling and maintaining casing in 6,500 feet of this salt layer is a significant technical challenge.

(snip)

http://www.articlehome.net/environment/nature/40-billion-barrel-downturn-47fd9fdbe3e3c.html
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Prisoner_Number_Six Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 10:39 AM
Response to Original message
20. Time to invade South America.
For their own good, you understand...
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hunter Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 11:29 AM
Response to Original message
22. If you think of Saudi Arabia as a huge turkey farm...
... this is equivalent to running through a forest trying to catch a wild turkey with your bare hands. I wouldn't count on having turkey for dinner.

I think the odds of ever developing such sources decrease with each passing day. If oil is at $100 it might cost $110 to produce oil from a field such as this. If oil is at $200 it might cost $240 to produce oil from a field like this. At $500 this sort of oil might just as well be on some other planet; nobody is going to have the economic resources to develop it. The name "Jupiter" for a petroleum field under 16,700 feet of water could turn out to be very appropriate.

It was a terrible, terrible mistake to base our world economy on fossil fuels, and the consequences will be dire.
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Barrett808 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Apr-15-08 02:17 PM
Response to Original message
24. Or not: Brazil's Petrobras denies giant oil field discovery
RIO DE JANEIRO, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras denied Monday an earlier announcement of the discovery of a gigantic oil and gas field in southeastern Brazil.

The salt layer of the second well drilled in block BMS-9 of the announced oil field has not even been reached yet, and the huge field, if it does exist, lies below the salt layer, the company said in a statement.

The announcement of the discovery had been made earlier Monday by the director of the government's National Oil and Gas Agency Haroldo Lima. The agency is in charge of regulating the oil and gas sector in the country.

The oil field in the Santos Basin in southeastern Brazil appears to be the world's third-largest oil and gas reserve, bearing an estimated volume of 33 billion barrels, Lima said.

Petrobras' statement said that the first well drilled in the area in September 2007 has produced promising results, which have been already released to the market and still need to be confirmed by further drillings.

The drilling of the second well started on March 22 and has not yet reached the necessary depth to reach the salt layer that lies above the reserve. The layer is two km wide, according to the statement.

(more)

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/15/content_7978866.htm
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