Petrobras may confirm Iran oil commercial ‘in weeks’

Bloomberg: Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state controlled oil company, may determine “in weeks” whether oil it found in Iran is commercial, a company executive said.

By Jeb Blount and Carlos Caminada

Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state controlled oil company, may determine “in weeks” whether oil it found in Iran is commercial, a company executive said.

Petrobras found indications of oil after drilling two wells in the Tusan field in the Persian Gulf, said Jorge Luiz Zelada, the company’s head of international operations, at a news conference in Rio de Janeiro today. The company has spent $100 million since 2004 exploring for oil in Iran, he said.

“We’ve found signs of oil offshore in Iran,” Zelada said. “We are in the final phase of analyzing the results.”

Petrobras plans to invest $15.9 billion in international operations through 2013, or 9 percent of its five-year, $174.4 billion spending plan, according to Petrobras’s Web site. The company hopes to increase output outside of Brazil 52 percent to 341,000 barrels a day in 2013 from 224,000 barrels in 2008.

The company plans to start offshore drilling in Angola and Turkey this year, Zelada said. Talks to drill in Namibia are “advanced,” he said.

In Turkey, Petrobras expects to reach output of 100,000 barrels a day from blocks in the Black Sea in 2020, Zelada said.

Petrobras is planning first output from the Chinook and Cascade oil fields in the U.S. next year, Zelada said.