Geologia

Geologia, Tectônica e Recursos Minerais do Brasil L. A. Bizzi, C. Schobbenhaus, R. M. Vidotti e J. H. Gonçalves (eds.) CPRM, Brasília, 2003.

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Capítulo X

Recursos Minerais Energéticos: Petróleo

Energy Mineral Resources: Petroleum
Edison José Milani e Laury Medeiros de Araújo PETROBRAS

Summary
Petroleum exploration in Brazil has a long history, starting in pre-Republican times. In 1858, Emperor Dom Pedro II signed concessions for exploration of coal, peat and bitumen. Petroleum and gas seeps have been known since the 19th century, in outcrops of the Cretaceous rocks of the Recôncavo and Camamu basins, Bahia State; in the Paleozoic sequences of the Paraná Basin, Southern Brazil; and in Maranhão State, Northern Brazil, in outcrops of Cretaceous strata of the Barreirinhas and São Luis basins. From these pioneer times on petroleum exploration in Brazil has gone through several phases, each one strongly controlled by the state of geological knowledge, the growing demand for petroleumderived fuels, the availability of federal resources for investment, the variation of petroleum prices in the international market, and more recently, by the new Brazilian petroleum law, which ended the state monopoly in the sector. The starting point of the Brazilian petroleum industry was the creation of PETROBRAS, in 1953. This company traced a successful exploration history starting with the onshore basins, migrated towards the sea and reached progressivelly new frontiers in the deep water domains, defining benchmarks in this challenging region of the continental margin basins. Brazil is a very large country, encompassing a sedimentary area of about 6.5 million square kilometers, including several, prospectable Proterozoic to Tertiary basins. The continuous activity revealed several producing provinces. Initial activities were conducted in the Northeast region, where the Recôncavo and Sergipe–Alagoas basins sustained Brazil’s production up to the end of the 60’s. In the