Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer, is accelerating an exploration program at the onshore Reconcavo Basin, where Brazil found its first oil in 1939, the country’s oil regulator said. The Agencia Nacional do Petroleo, or ANP, authorized Petrobras to start exploratory drilling ahead of schedule at block REC-T-168 in northern Brazil during a Feb. 2 board meeting, the ANP said in a document on its web site. Petrobras has found oil or natural gas at 11 exploration wells it has drilled at the basin since 2001, according to ANP data.

'Petrobras was born in Reconcavo,' Wagner Freire, a former Petrobras exploration and production manager who currently works as an independent oil consultant, said in a telephone interview Feb. 4. 'They know the basin very well.'

Petrobras plans to boost output at Reconcavo to more than 50,000 barrels a day in the next five years, up from 46,800 barrels a day now, a Petrobras spokeswoman, who can’t be named under company policy, said in a Feb. 5 e-mail to Bloomberg. Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras is investing $174.4 billion in the five years through 2013 to boost output. 

Reconcavo Basin

Located in the northeast region of Brazil, in Bahia State, the onshore portion of the Reconcavo Basin covers an area of 10,200 km². It is separated from Tucano Basin to the north by the Apora High, and from Camamu-Almada Basin, to the south, by an east-west transfer zone (Barra Fault). The eastern and western basin margins are represented by Salvador and Maragogipe fault systems respectively. The first oil discovery was made in 1939 by a well drilled in Lobato, considered to mark the starting of the national petroleum industry.

Source: Bloomberg / energy-pedia