Goodbye Saudi Oil, Hello Brazil (update)

Brazil has announced finding two of the three largest oil fields discovered in the last thirty years off shore from their coast. With oil fields rivaling that of Saudi Arabia.

The oil fields off the coast of Brazil are reported to be in the running for some of the largest fields of oil discovered not only in the last thirty years, one of the fields is the third largest field in history, ranking only behind Saudi Arabia and Kuwait in size of the find. While the actual size of the entire geologic formations oil fields remains in question, the finds highlight the availability of reducing the need for Middle East oil fields for the United States and other Western Hemisphere nations.

``We could see that world becoming a very violent one,'' said Zeihan, former chief of Middle East and East Asia analysis for Strategic Forecasting. (Austin Texas)``If the United States isn't getting any crude from the Gulf, what benefit does it have in policing the Gulf anymore? All of the geopolitical flux that wracks that region regularly suddenly isn't our problem.''

If the West is able to remove its dire need for energy sources from the Middle East, some analysts believe the entire Middle Eastern region oil output could be used by China and India, two of the large growth economies at this time. With China and India finding the need to patrol the Middle East as the Regional Police, the cost of maintaining reasonable peace in the area would be lifted from the backs of the American public, allowing the US to heal it's economy in a much needed manner. The prediction is for a 2012 production start-up for the Tupi field. The Tupi field will need new technology to be developed for the production to begin, since the filed lies a hundreds of miles off shore and under several thoudand feet of sand, and rock. Petrobras, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., and Norsk Hydro ASA will begin pumping as much as 1.02 million barrels of oil in the next two and a half years from Brazilian oil fields.While the Tupi field may only hold as little or as much as three billion barrels, the Carioca field may hold as much as ten billion barrels. depending ones point of viewThe United States still imports most of it's 10,000,000 barrels per day of oil from Canada with Saudi Arabia providing the bulk of the remainder, and Venezuela providing a small amount. On April 23rd, production began at a oil platform in the Azerbaijan section of the Caspian Sea, The platform is operated by British Petroleum. The Deep water Gunashi (DWG) oil field has more wells which have been drilled and which will be coming on line through the end of 2008. This oil field is not as spectacular as the Brazilian find, but points out a very significant reality. Oil when the price becomes right, is worth finding, drilling for, and producing. The DWG filed is one of many which can be brought on line in near future, and should be able to relieve some of the geopolitical pressure on the Middle East if all of the oil fields are utilized to meet the growing demand worldwide. DWG is part of a larger oil production cooperative being carried out in three oil fields in the overall oil fields in the region. Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG) Companies participating in the ACG region are (by percentage) BP (operator - 34.1%), Chevron (10.2%), SOCAR (10%), INPEX (10%), StatoilHydro (8.6%), ExxonMobil (8%), TPAO (6.8%), Devon (5.6%), ITOCHU (3.9%), and Hess (2.7%). The companies have a Thirty Year agreement which was entered into in 1994 to produce oil from these fields.