Brazil discovers World's 3rd-largest oil and gas reserves

Brazil's state-owned Petrobras, BG Group and Repsol have discovered what could be the world's third-largest oil and gas reserves, Haroldo Lima, director of the National Oil and Gas Agency (ANP), which regulates the sector in the country, said on Monday.

The seminar, at Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro, Lima stressed that the information was not released "officially" yet.

He added that, if confirmed, in the field, with an estimated volume of 33 billion barrels, in the deep waters in the Santos Basin, in south-eastern Brazil property, will be the world's largest oil and gas discoveries in the last 30 years.

According to the director of ANP, in the field, temporarily named "Sugar Loaf", in connection with the Rio landmark, will be five times greater than the Tupi, the giant field discovered in November 2007.

Tupi is known as the largest oil and gas reserve ever found in Brazil property, bearing an estimated volume of 5-8 billion barrels of light oil.

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 of the BMS-11, where Tupi was discovered.

ANP added that the field could not be classified as an "exploitation field" because it has not been declared commercially useful. The first trace of the existence of oil and gas in the field, located in the pre-salt layer, was found in August 2007, but members of the consortium have not issued any prospects of its total volume so far.

The new field is also close to block BMS-24, where Petrobras voiced at the beginning of this year to have discovered Brazil's largest natural gas reserve, in the Jupiter field.