An Outlook On The Petroleum Potential Of The Brazilian Deep Water

In the middle 50’s, at the beginning of its exploratory history, Petrobras focused its efforts on the large paleozoic<br>basins and on the onshore portions of the Brazilian marginal basins. Large intracratonic basins spreaded from the<br>Equatorial Amazon jungle (Acre, Solimões and Amazon basins) and arid northeast (Parnaiba Basin) to the well<br>developed south-southeast region (Paraná Basin), and small onshore cretaceous marginal basins from the<br>northern coast (São Luiz and Barreirinhas basins) to the eastern coast (Recôncavo, Tucano, Sergipe-Alagoas,<br>Bahia–Sul and Espírito Santo basins) were explored. Field geology, gravity, and magnetics surveys, followed by<br>seismic and finally by wildcat wells, were the tools used on those early years. Despite some occurences in the<br>paleozoic basins, important commercial discoveries in onshore basins were restricted to the Reconcavo and<br>Sergipe-Alagoas marginal basins.