Elf Petroleos do Brasil Ltda, a subsidiary of Elf Aquitaine (NYSE:ELF) announces that it has taken an interest in the deep offshore Block BC-2 in the Campos Basin in Brazil. The block has a surface area of 2,600 square kilometers and is located 150 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro, with water depths ranging from 2,000 to 2,700 meters. Elf is the operator (35%) in association with Petrobras (35%) Enterprise (15%) and Shell (15%).

The Campos Basin is one of the richest oil basins in the world; 2.6 billion barrels having recently been discovered. With proven reserves of eight billion barrels, and an important potential for future discoveries, it is one of the most sought after areas by international oil companies today.

Work on this block will begin as soon as the agreements have been approved by the National Petroleum Agency.

In line with its strategy of acquiring high-quality deep and very deep offshore acreage, Elf also acquired a 35% interest in the deep water license in Barbados on July 9. The license was held by Conoco who remains the operator with 65%. This acquisition is subject to approval by the Barbadian authorities.

The license is located in the Orinoco river delta and covers more than 90,000 square kilometers, with water depths ranging from 50 to 3,000 meters. It lies near the Trinidad and Tobago offshore license where the Angostura well (Elf 30%) was discovered in May of this year.

These new awards are a concrete reflection of Elf's wish to intensify its exploration in large-scale, high-quality oil and gas basins and strengthens Elf's third group of producing subsidiaries where successes have already been achieved in the Middle East, the Gulf of Mexico, Latin America and the Caspian Sea. They confirm Elf Aquitaine's position as one of the world's leaders in deep offshore exploration and development.

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