By Denise
Luna and Reese
Ewing
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - State-run energy
company Petrobras on Friday lifted the first subsalt
oil from the massive, ultra-deep, offshore Tupi
field, an action Brazil's government hopes will
launch a new era for Latin America's largest
economy.
Petrobras (PETR4.SA)(PBR.N)
shocked the oil world in November 2007 when it said
the field contained up to 8 billion barrels of
recoverable light oil and gas, which would make it
the second-biggest oil find in 20 years.
"It is a historic moment, a new era,"
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said at an
onshore ceremony commemorating the first oil from
the Tupi field, after bad weather diverted his plans
to visit the platform 300 kilometers (190 miles)
offshore.
The Tupi is not be the first subsalt oil produced
off Brazil, but it will set the tone for development
of the rest of the 200-km-wide subsalt band
stretching 800 km down the coast.
If reserve estimates for the Tupi are confirmed,
it would vault Brazil into the world's top 10 oil
producing countries. The government plans to use the
wealth generated by these resources to transform
Brazil into a developed country.
"We are going to discuss what we want with
from this oil, what we want for the Brazilian
people," he said referring to the government's
decision to change the regulatory framework for
future subsalt oil exploration and production.
Soon after the size of Tupi was announced in
2007, the government suspended all oil round
auctions of subsalt blocks. It has still not come
out with a new regulatory model for developing the
reserves.
In September, Lula helicoptered out and dipped
his hands in the first subsalt oil produced at
Petrobras' Juscelino Kubitschek offshore platform,
named after a former president whose term was marked
by economic progress and widespread optimism.
The oil from the Jubarte field off the coast of
Espirito Santo came from depths of 1,375 meters
(4,500 feet) -- no astonishing feat by oil industry
standards. Lifting subsalt oil from the ultra-deep
Tupi is an entirely different story.
The field lies 7,000 meters (23,000 ft) below the
ocean surface, under 2,000 meters of corrosive salt
at mind-numbing pressures and temperatures, 300 km
offshore.
Although the government and Petrobras Chief
Executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli say the technology
and the will exist to profitably produce oil at
these extremes, industry specialists are more
skeptical.
"There are still doubts about how much
lateral continuity there is in the reservoir. It's a
different kind of rock, an unknown reservoir and we
don't know how it will behave," former
Petrobras geologist Giuseppe Bacoccoli told Reuters.
He said the long-term production tests over the
next 12 months that Petrobras initiated at Tupi on
the May 1 national holiday will help determine if
well pressure will drop and create problems for
developing the field and other parts of the subsalt
layer in the future.
The rock where the oil and gas is held, under the
2,000-meter-thick salt layer, is carbonate, as is
commonly found in oil reserves in the Middle East.
Around 80 percent of Brazil's current domestic
oil output of about 1.9 million barrels a day comes
from the Campos Basin at much shallower depths from
arenite rock, which allows Petrobras to re-inject
gas and water to maintain oil pressure. Continued...
