BP makes its biggest oil and gas discovery for 25 years off Brazil coast

BP has made its largest oil and gas discovery of the past 25 years off the coast of Brazil as it continues to shift its focus away from renewables and back to fossil fuels.

- Jillian Ambrose

The Santos basin oil and gas discovery, which is in deep waters, is the company's 10th oil find of the year and could be its largest since its discovery at the Shah Deniz gasfield in Azerbaijan in 1999.

BP is carrying out further tests on the Santos discovery, made beneath about 2,400 metres of water and 250 miles off the Brazilian coast, to gauge the potential of the oil and gas basin.

It is likely to play a significant role in the company's plan to increase its oil and gas production to between 2.3m and 2.5m barrels of oil equivalent a day.

The company said yesterday that it had also started a new oil extension project in the Gulf of Mexico that should add an extra 20,000 barrels a day to its production. The Argos project would be the first in a series of new projects in the gulf between now and the end of the decade.