A recently discovered deepwater oil field off Brazil could be the biggest found in the world in the past 20 years, officials quoted Tuesday by the Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper said. The Libra field, discovered in 2007 and located off the coast from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, potentially contained 7.9 billion barrels of crude, the head of the National Oil Agency, Magda Chambriard, told the daily, quoting an independent evaluation.
"Where have you seen a tender for more than seven billion barrels in the past few years? That hasn't happened since the Middle East in the 1970s," she said. The tender for the field - which is situated at great depth under a technically challenging layer of salt - should take place next year.
Petrobras, Brazil's state-run oil company, has proven reserves of 14 billion barrels of crude oil. But if recent finds in the Santos Basin where Libra and other fields are located turn out to be viable, that figure could triple and Brazil could become one of the world's biggest oil exporters.
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