London (Platts)--9May2008

Brazil plans to become a major oil exporter and wants to join OPEC, the
country's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva told German magazine Der Spiegel
published online Friday.

Lula said Brazil wanted to start oil production from its massive offshore
Tupi field in 2010, which will turn the country into a large oil exporter.

"We have discovered immense oil reserves, and we have the know-how to
exploit them," Lula said. "In March we want to start test drilling and from
2010 produce oil. Then Brazil will become a major oil exporter. We want to
join OPEC and try to make oil cheaper," he said.

Brazilian state-controlled Petrobras last year said it had discovered two
giant subsalt oil and gas fields, Tupi and Jupiter, which may hold up to 8
billion barrels of oil equivalent each.

It also has a third discovery, Carioca, which could be its largest yet,
Petrobras officials said in April.

Petrobras said in April it would establish a new unit of the company to
implement a Tupi pilot project in 2009, and establish an initial production of
around 100,000 b/d light crude from Tupi by 2010.

Potential commercial production could reach 1 million b/d from the field
within a decade, Petrobras said