MIAMI, April 15 (UPI) -- Brazil's state-run oil firm, Petrobras, has announced yet another light-crude find in the Santos Basin off the Sao Paulo coast, the latest in a series of discoveries that has the South American country touting its potential to become one of the world's largest petroleum producers.
The discovery, known as Iguacu, was in a block 200 miles off the coast and more than 6,500 feet below the surface. The find is shared by Petrobras, the Spanish firm Repsol YPF and Britain's BG Group PLC.
While Brazilian oil officials have not publicly estimated the size of the find, the discovery was made in a particularly petroleum-rich portion of the basin. Total offshore oil reserves are believed to hold up to 70 billion barrels.
Tuesday's announcement followed another discovery last week by BG Group PLC and Petrobras in the Santos Basin.
Brazil's recent fortune with oil began in 2007 after the discovery of the offshore Tupi oil field, a find that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said would catapult his country into the world's top 10 oil exporters.
Lula earlier this year said the first real production from the deepwater wells would begin in May, but labor disputes and fallen oil prices could make development schedules difficult to keep.
Brazil's oil industry is also facing a political crisis of sorts because of lawmakers' failure to pass new oil legislation, which is necessary to begin full-scale production at the offshore fields.
Officials at Brazil's National Petroleum Agency said last week that the legislation would be passed sometime in the first half of 2009, though no definitive deadline for its approval has been set.
The law is aimed at determining how the projected windfall from the oil profits would be spent and has prompted much debate in recent months. Lula said the money must not be spent on "silly things," a direct reference to the recent frenzy of discussion among lawmakers in Brasilia on how to spend the nation's future oil fortunes. Among the recently proposed expenditures is a fleet of nuclear submarines.
The law's passage could prove to be a defining moment in the president's eight-year career, which is scheduled to end in 2010.
"Lula does not want to leave the decision to the next administration, and politically he is looking to plant a 'flag' on the new deepwater discoveries," an analysis of the sector by the Eurasia Consulting Group said.
Lula, a longtime champion of the left whose monetary policy has been somewhat conservative during his first six years in office, said the country's oil profits should be spent revamping Brazil's educational system, particularly for the country's vast poor populace.
A former union leader, Lula said earlier this year that Brazil's recent oil fortunes would help wipe out endemic poverty once and for all -- a bold claim considering the South American country has one of the world's largest economic divides been the haves and have-nots.
