Brazil may have new Sugar loaf oil field may have 33 billion barrels of oil

Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency President Haroldo Lima is talking about a 33 billion barrel offshore oil find (not Tupi another find) deep-water exploration area off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

This find is also called the Cariaco field

According to the ANP director, the field, temporarily named “Sugar Loaf,” in reference to Rio’s landmark, would be five times larger than Tupi, the giant field discovered in November 2007.

Tupi is regarded as the largest oil and gas reserve ever found in Brazil, bearing an estimated volume of 5-8 billion barrels of light oil. Tupi could have over ten billion barrels of oil in place.

Petrobras is looking at a 100,000 barrel per day pilot project in the Tupi for late 2009 or early 2010.

Petrobras’ press office has not confirmed the discovery yet, but informed that the Sugar Loaf field is located in block BMS-9 of the Santos Basin, west

Petrobras at wikipedia

On January 21, 2008, Petrobras announced the discovery of Jupiter, a huge oil field which could equal the Tupi oil field. It is located 37 km (23 mi) from Tupi, 5,100 m (16,730 ft) below the Atlantic Ocean, 290 km (180 mi) from Rio de Janeiro

FURTHER READING
A previous article covering all of the large oil projects expected to produce 100,000 b/d or more in 2008.

Carioca remained hidden from explorers until recently because energy companies lacked the technology to assess prospects obscured by undersea salt formations.

“Salt is difficult to see through for a geologist because salt absorbs seismic energy,” Gibson said in an interview today. “Also, a decade ago the physical technology didn’t exist that would even enable you to drill in water that deep.”

Petrobras recently created a division to coordinate all exploration projects off the southeast coast, given its potentially large reserves.

“We haven’t seen any discoveries that large in decades because we’ve punched enough holes in the Earth that we already know where most of the big fields are,” said Gibson, president of Butte, Montana-based Gibson Consulting.

Carioca is 273 kilometers (170 miles) off the Brazilian coast in water more than 2,000 meters deep.

The Brazil discoveries could be ten times larger than the USGS assessment of currently recoverable oil from the Bakken in the USA.

The Brazil finds could be North Sea oil size finds.

Some analysts are speculating that there could be 80 billion barrels of oil off of Brazils shores.