The importance of recent Brazilian oil discoveries to the global petroleum industry

In recent years, the Brazilian upstream sector has become the focus of intense interest on the part of petroleum industry observers. Amidst sharp output declines in many basins that have been key bulwarks of the oil and gas markets (Mexico, Alaska, the North Sea), the Brazilian deepwater offshore had arguably been one of the brightest spots for worldwide exploration activities in terms of discoveries and additions to reserves, even before the announcement of hitherto unsuspected and seemingly gigantic fields in structures located underneath enormous autochthonous salt layers deposited in Cretaceous times