TEXT OF STORY

Bill Radke: The British energy giant BP is heading to Brazil. Why? It turns out the South American country, and its coastal waters, could be the next big oil reserve. From London, Marketplace’s Stephen Beard reports.

Stephen Beard: BP bought a chunk of oil assets from the U.S. firm Devon Energy. The price: $7 billion in cash. The deal includes offshore exploration licenses in Brazil. The oil won’t be easy to get at. It’s buried deep under the ocean floor, many miles out at sea.

But Peter Kemp, editor at Energy Intelligence, says there does appear to be a lot of oil in the region:

Peter Kemp: There have been dramatic discoveries in the subsalt deep under the ocean, with upwards of 8 billion barrels already proven by the Brazilian state company.

BP is well qualified to operate in deep water. It’s already the largest oil producer in the Gulf Mexico, where it drilled the deepest oil well anywhere — 36,000 feet deep, which is about the height of Mount Everest.

In London, this is Stephen beard for Marketplace.