Brazil's state-controlled oil multinational Petrobras announced this Wednesday, after the exchange market had already closed in Brazil, that once again it did strike oil. This time the oil giant found the product in pre-salt submarine reservoirs in the bloc known as BM-S-8, in an area called Bem-Te-Vi. in the Santos basin, in the littoral of São Paulo state.
The new find will be explored by Petrobras (66%) in partnership with Shell (20%) and Galp Energia (14%).Â
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According to the Petrobras press office, only a preliminary test has been conducted and for that reason it's not possible at present to tell the size of the discovered field. The state company will have to make other tests to find out among other things the quality and the volume of the oil. There is no forecast for when such a study will me carried out.
Media reports tell that Petrobras has become the third-largest publicly-traded company in the Americas. With a market value of US$ 295.6 billion Petrobras now has surpassed Microsoft, which has a market value of US$ 274 billion.
ExxonMobil Corp. (489 billion) and General Electric Co. (320 billion) top the list. GE, which is the world's biggest provider of power-plant turbines, jet engines, medical imaging machines, aircraft leasing and locomotives, slumped the most in more than two decades early April after profit unexpectedly declined. The GE stock is down 15% this year.
In the last 12 months Petrobras shares soared 110% compared to a 3.5% setback for Microsoft. Petrobras market value has quadrupled since 2004.
Petrobras said it is also the sixth-largest company by market value in the world, having recently surpassed the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., which has a market value of 289.3 billion.
Petrobras only recently had surpassed Royal Dutch Shell PLC in market value to become the world's third-biggest publicly traded oil and gas company after Exxon and Russian gas producer OAO Gazprom, which also has significant oil production.
Last April Petrobras announced the discovery of huge offshore oil and gas deposits in the pre-salt layer which could be one of the largest hits in recent years with estimated reserves of 33 billion barrels.
Petrobras' average oil and natural gas production in Brazil reached 2,157,226 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe) in April, up 5.1% from a year ago and 2% above the 2,114,089 boe extracted last March.
According to a company report Petrobras' daily production capacity is expected to grow an additional 500,000 barrels in 2008, when four more platforms begin operations, three of which in the Campos Basin and one in the Espírito Santo Sea. Furthermore, the five platforms that started producing in 2007 are also slated to reach their maximum capacities during the year.
Natural gas domestic fields' production reached 50,064 million cubic meters per day, up 5.4% from the 43.375 million cubic meters of April 2007.
Including all production, oil and gas, domestic and abroad, Petrobras output in April was equivalent to 2,381,045 boe per day, up 3.7% over April 2007, and 1.8% above March 2008.
Bzz/Mercopress
