Filling up the future
Its remarkable offshore oil bonanza could do Brazil a lot of good. But getting the most out of it will not be easy
GEOLOGICAL structures of vast antiquity are more often called on to bolster the arguments of atheists than enlisted as tokens of a deity's existence—let alone his nationality. But the deep Cretaceous salts which trap oil in rocks off Brazil's coast are “strong evidence”, in the words of President Dilma Rousseff, “that God is Brazilian.” It is not a new conceit, but it has rarely been a more apposite one. The pré-sal (“below the salt”) oilfields look set to generate wealth on a scale that could transform Brazil's economy.
Before the pré-sal finds, which started in 2007, the country's total proven and probable reserves were 20 billion barrels. Conservative estimates for the total recoverable pré-sal oil now come in at 50 billion barrels: a little less than everything in the North Sea, all in the waters of one country. Optimists expect three times as much. “In the pré-sal area, our exploration has a success rate of 87%, compared with a world average of 20% to 25% for the industry,” says Sergio Gabrielli, the president of Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil company.
This article appeared in the Briefing section of the print edition under the headline "Filling up the future"
Briefing November 5th 2011
From the November 5th 2011 edition
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