Brazil's state-run Petrobras will begin to pump oil in a Nigerian field on July 21, local media reported Saturday.

The company will start pumping oil from Nigeria's offshore Agbami oil field in partnership with Total and Chevron-Texaco, the Agencia Brasil state news service reported.

Petrobras plans to pump 100,000 barrels a day from the field and will boost its output to 250,000 barrels a day by next year, the company's Nigeria manager Rudy Ferreira was quoted as saying.

Petrobras has invested about 2.2 billion U.S. dollars in oil exploration and production in Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in Africa, since 1998.

The company plans to invest some 15 billion dollars over the upcoming four years in foreign oil ventures. Currently, it has invested 6.6 billion dollars in 23 countries.

Light, sweet crude oil hit a record price of nearly 143 dollars a barrel Friday.

Oil prices have more than doubled in the past year due to the dollar's decline, rising global demand, as well as supply outages in the Middle East and Nigeria, analysts say.

(Xinhua News Agency June 29, 2008)