Reply #28: Who knows? But I just did a quick search and found this...

[elias49]

clipped from a NY Times article from 2008. Maybe this can provide some context:

"RIO DE JANEIRO — While some of the world's largest oil producers, including Mexico and Iran, are struggling to remain exporters, Brazil is moving in the opposite direction. A huge underwater oil field discovered late last year has the potential to transform South America's largest country into a sizable exporter and win it a seat at the table of the world's oil cartel.

The new oil, along with refining projects under way by Petrobras, the national oil company, could eventually make Brazil a larger exporter of gasoline as well, adding to supplies in the United States and other countries where it is all but impossible to build new refineries.

The basin that contains Tupi, the new deepwater field ESTIMATED TO HOLD THE EQUIVALENT OF FIVE TO EIGHT BILLION BARRELS OF LIGHT CRUDE OIL is creating a buzz among the world's largest oil companies. They have struggled lately to find global-scale projects worth investing in, even with oil touching $100 a barrel. Tupi is the world's biggest oil find since a 12-billion-barrel field discovered in 2000 in Kazakhstan."

Which makes me think "Holy shit!"

Link to complete story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/11/business/worldbusiness/11iht-oil.1.9147825.html