Development rights to the Santos Basin find, discovered earlier this year by Brazil's ANP petroleum agency, may be auctioned as early as next year, Marco Antonio Martins Almeida, the ministry's oil and natural gas secretary, said at the Rio Oil & Gas Conference 2010.
Brazil's ANP, which is overseeing drilling of the first well in Libra, said the agency expects to find 7.9 billion boe in Libra. The ANP outlook is based on estimate by Gaffney Cline & Associates using seismic studies by CGG Veritas, Magda Chambreard, a member of the ANP board told reporters at the conference.
The ANP expects to complete drilling the first well into the Libra reservoir within 15 to 30 days, depending on weather, and test the well by sometime in November, Chambreard said.
The well is being drilled by Noble Corp.'s Noble Paul Wolff semisubmersible rig. The well, known as 2ANP2ARJS, is being drilled in water 1,886 meters (6,198 feet) deep to an estimated depth of 6,425 meters beneath the seabed.
Chambreard declined to say if Almeida's estimate was based on the ANP's estimate, but confirmed that his estimate was in line with the ANP's.
Libra and Franco, with an estimated 6 billion boe of recoverable oil, were both discovered this year by the ANP as part of a government plan to help finance the sale of new stock in Petrobras with future offshore oil resources.
China Chemical Weekly: http://news.chemnet.com/en/detail-1411716.html
