Petrobras Finds Oil and Gas Signs at Morpho Well Off Amapa in Equatorial Margin

Petrobras announced on Friday that it found signs of oil and gas in a well drilled in the Equatorial Margin region. The material was found at the Morpho well, about 175 kilometres off the coast of Amapa, with drilling still under way and the detail of the find still being analysed.

It is the first discovery on the Amapa coast, and Petrobras chief executive Magda Chambriard said the company's optimism about the Brazilian Equatorial Margin was confirmed, calling the result the product of Petrobras dedication and competence and of a commitment to replacing oil reserves and to the country's energy security.

The area runs from Amapa to Rio Grande do Norte and drew attention after oil discoveries in Guyana and Suriname, neighbouring countries. That southward extension of a proven Atlantic play is the reason the Morpho result carries weight beyond Brazil's own reserve arithmetic.

Petrobras waited more than a decade for authorisation to drill the first well in the Foz do Amazonas basin. Ibama granted the licence in October of last year, after requiring a series of environmental protection measures and accident response provisions.

The company intends to drill three more wells in the region, but still depends on new authorisations. Those permits, not the geology, set the pace of any follow-up appraisal campaign.

Petrobras sees the opening of new exploration areas as necessary to offset, in the future, a possible decline in pre-salt output, which today concentrates the bulk of the country's reserves. The Equatorial Margin is the frontier the company has chosen for that replacement task.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senate President Davi Alcolumbre (Uniao-AP) will visit a Petrobras drillship working on oil exploration in the Equatorial Margin off the coast of Amapa on Monday. Alcolumbre commented on the discovery on Friday, saying: "We were right. It took years of struggle to get here. We fought for the right to research the Equatorial Margin and know our riches."

The visit is the first joint public appearance by Lula and Alcolumbre after months of estrangement following the Senate's defeat of Jorge Messias, the president's nominee to the Supremo Tribunal Federal, at the end of April. The two have held three meetings in recent days, the first at the home of STF justice Alexandre de Moraes and the most recent at the Palacio da Alvorada last week.

The political thaw matters to the drilling programme because the outstanding items are licences and authorisations rather than capital commitments. A BTG/Nexus poll cited alongside the report puts Lula at 47% and Flavio at 44% in a second round, technically tied.