New “pre-salt” oil reserves on the Amazon coast excite markets

Over the years, Brazil’s state-controlled oil major Petrobras has worked on technology to ensure the country’s self-sufficiency with regard to its oil reserves. The eureka moment came in 2006, when the company announced the existence of vast deepwater crude oil reserves off the coast of Rio de Janeiro — the so-called “pre-salt” oilfields.

Fifteen years later, there are indications of new massive pre-salt oil reserves in Brazil’s North region, near the coast of Amazonian states Amapá, Maranhão, and Pará. Early estimates suggest these fields could contain the equivalent of between 20 and 30 billion barrels.

The discovery came from a scientific study carried out by the Maranhão State Industry Federation (Fiema) in February. “We believe that exploiting these prospects found in the deep waters of the Pará-Maranhão Basin will be an opportunity for regional development, with the broad creation of employment,” said Fiema’s president, Edilson  Baldez das Neves.

Amid the socio-economic context of the mid-2000s — with the rising demand for oil around the world — Brazil’s pre-salt discovery represented a significant expansion of the national economy. Still in his first term as head of state, then-President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva...