The Tupi oil field (reverted from Lula oil field) is a large oil field located in the Santos Basin, 250 km off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.[2] The field was originally nicknamed in honor of the Tupi people and later named after the mollusc, however it was also ambiguously similar to the name of former Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. It is considered to be the Western Hemisphere's largest oil discovery of the last 30 years.[3]
History
The Tupi field was discovered in October 2006 by Petrobras. The former president of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called the field second independence for Brazil.[4] The field was originally named Tupi but in 2010 it was renamed Lula. The name 'Lula' means squid in Portuguese but also refers to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.[5] The upper estimate of 8 Goilbbl of recoverable oil would be enough to meet the total global demand for crude oil for about three months at the 2008 global extraction rate of around 85 Moilbbl/d.