The discovery of giant pre-salt oilfields in the ultra-deepwaters of Brazil’s Santos basin was one of the gamechanging events of the last decade, matched only by the breakthrough into large-scale production of shale gas in North America.
The time-scale upon which these two plays are impacting the global oil market is different, however, and the technological challenges to be surmounted in the pre-salt environment are the main reason why.
State-controlled
