Petrobras CEO: Pre-Salt Oil Extraction Costs $8 Per Barrel

SAO PAULO, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Oil extraction in Brazil's promising pre-salt offshore wells costs about $8 per barrel, Petroleo Brasileiro SA Chief Executive Officer Pedro Parente said at an event in Sao Paulo on Tuesday.

Discovered only 10 years ago, the pre-salt area has rapidly become the top priority for Petrobras and other oil majors holding exploration rights to some of its large reserves.

Output from pre-salt wells surpassed the combined volumes from all other fields in the country for the first time in July.

"Pre-salt, today, has an extraction cost of $8 per barrel. The problem was the delay in exploring pre-salt," Parente said.

Parente also said the state-controlled company's new fuel pricing policy will reduce the chance of prices reaching below international parity.

Petrobras has sharply reduced the price gap between the value of gasoline sold at its refineries and the spot price in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico <RU-USG> since early July, when it announced changes to its pricing to adopt almost daily adjustments, according to fuel market experts.

(Reporting by Jose Roberto Gomes; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)