Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
OIL AND GAS JOURNAL

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 29 -- Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras), following earlier remarks about its recent offshore discoveries, said it will invest $12 billion in the Santos basin by 2012.

Production from Mexilhao field alone was expected to reach 15 million cu m/day of gas—a volume equal to about 30% of Brazil's current gas demand, Petrobras said.

Other Santos basin projects include the development of Urugua, Tambau, Caravela, and Cavalo Marinho fields as well as the construction of a gas treatment unit in Caraguatatuba. Petrobras said it was expecting 30 million cu m/day of gas production and 100,000 b/d of oil production.

Petrobras's discovery last week of Jupiter gas and condensate field in the basin reinforces the notion that there is practically no exploratory risk in the presalt layer, a Petrobras executive said.

The first Jupiter well, 1-BRSA-559-RJS (1-RJS-652), was drilled to 5,252 m in 2,187 m of water about 290 km off Rio de Janeiro state, just 37 km from the Tupi area.