BP has achieved its largest oil and gas find in a quarter-century by successfully drilling a well in a Brazilian offshore field, marking a significant development for the energy company as it shifts its focus back toward fossil fuels.

Located in the Santos Basin, approximately 400km from Rio de Janeiro, the Bumerangue field extends across over 300 sq km, an area nearly five times larger than Manhattan.

In a stock exchange announcement on Monday, Gordon Birrell, BP’s head of oil production, described the find as a "significant discovery" and the company’s biggest in 25 years, with BP shares climbing 1.2 percent in early trading.

According to a BP spokesperson, the discovery marks the company's largest since the 1999 Shah Deniz find, a massive Caspian Sea gasfield containing approximately 35 trillion cubic feet of gas, with Bumerangue estimated to hold a combination of gas, condensate, and oil.

This discovery comes as BP's CEO Murray Auchincloss shifts the company's strategy to place greater emphasis on oil and gas production while scaling back its focus on renewable energy sources.

While BP stated that it remains too early to evaluate the scale or grade of the reserves, the company acknowledged the presence of higher-than-normal carbon dioxide levels, which may pose extraction challenges and drive up processing expenses.

BP's daily oil and gas output last year reached slightly below 2.4 million barrels, with current plans to sustain production at 2.3-2.5 million barrels per day through 2030 while leaving room for potential growth beyond that timeframe by 2035.