BP discovers major oil and natural gas reserves in Brazil's Santos basin

BP announced on Monday that it had made an oil-and-gas discovery in Brazil's Santos Basin, a pre-salt zone in deep waters offshore believed to contain a large amount of oil and natural gas.

BP plans to increase its global upstream oil production from 2.3 million to 2.5 million barrels equivalent per day by 2030. It said this was the largest discovery it had made in 25 years.

The discovery coincides with BP's major reversal of strategy in an effort to improve a poor share performance.

Pre-Sal Petroleo SA, a Brazilian state-owned company, is the manager of the production-sharing contract.

According to the oil company, it had acquired the block by December 2022 at "very good commercial conditions".

BP stated that the results of the rig site analysis indicated elevated levels of CO2, adding that they would begin laboratory analyses, which would provide more insight into potential of the block.

BP will report its second quarter results on Tuesday.

(source: Reuters)