Brazil poised to turn into oil superpower
Nation finds billions of barrels of crude beneath ocean floor
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva called it "a gift from God" and pledged to end chronic poverty and narrow the country's broad gap between the rich and the poor.
But before rhetoric becomes reality, Brazil must first get to the underwater reserves, among the world's deepest, and then manage a massive influx of wealth — a formidable task that has left other national economies awash in corruption and even greater gaps between the rich and poor.
Jockeying for a cut of the proceeds has already begun.
Military officials are calling for increased military spending, stressing the need for a nuclear submarine program and a new fighter jet fleet to protect the oil from rivals.
The nine fields discovered in the last year are thought to hold 50 billion to 80 billion barrels of light crude — more than four times Brazil's current proven reserves. With the find, Brazil could supply all of its own needs for nearly a century or become one of the world's top oil exporters.
The oil fields will be the most complicated and costly it has ever developed. Analysts say the project will require at least a $600 billion investment over 30 years.
The deep-water reservoirs lie some 185 miles offshore in the Atlantic, more than a mile below the ocean's surface and under another 2.5 miles of earth and corrosive salt. The salt beds can break loose and shear off piping, making it one of the toughest substances to drill.
Given those conditions, rough ocean currents and floating rigs, the technology required to tap Brazil's so-called "pre-salt" oil is on par with that needed to land a man on the moon, said Eric Smith a drilling expert at the Entergy-Tulane Energy Institute at Tulane University in New Orleans.
"If you were doing this with a drill from atop the Empire State building, about 1,000 feet up, you'd be trying to hit a target on 34th Street the size of a quarter," Smith said.
"Then you've got to go down an equivalent distance to reach the oil, and it might not be on 34th Street, it might be on 42nd Street," he said.
Petrobras will use seismic imaging to map the reserves, but even that will not provide a clear view under the salt, which blurs images, said Judson Jacobs, director of upstream technology at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Cambridge, Mass.
Drilled wells must also withstand crushing pressure of extreme depths, he said.
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