Brazil: World's Third-Largest Oil Field

Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, announced the discovery of the potential Carioca deepwater oil field, stating that it may hold 33 billion barrels of oil, making it the third-largest oil field ever discovered. Assuming Petrobras meant oil-in-place reserves, recoverable reserves should be about a third of this.


The Carioca area lies in the Atlantic, west of Tupi filed in the fertile Santos basin, off the coast of Sao Paulo state.


“It could be the world’s biggest discovery in the past 30 years, and the world’s third-biggest currently active field,” Haroldo Lima, head of the government’s oil and fuel market regulator, told reporters at an industry event in Rio de Janeiro.


Petrobras also has said previously it sees good prospects for major oil finds in the subsalt areas in the Campos and Espirito Santo basins north of Santos, but it is focusing mainly on Santos at the moment.