By IANS/EFE,
Rio de Janeiro : Brazil has announced the discovery of about 4.5 billion barrels of oil in an offshore region, which could transform the country into a major oil exporter.
The oil was found near the Franco well, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) said Thursday.
The Franco well is the second-biggest oil well in the pre-salt region, where an estimated 80 billion barrels of oil are located below the ocean floor under a layer of salt.
Franco is located 45 km from Iara, a well owned by state-controlled Petrobras oil company, that has an estimated 3-4 billion barrels of reserves. Another pre-salt well, Tupi, has an estimated reserve of between 5-8 billion barrels of crude and natural gas.
Brazil’s current reserves total 14 billion barrels.