Brazil Putting Oil Fields On ebay
Brazil will hold two auctions of onshore oilfields on Dec. Brazil’s National Energy Policy Council approved on Wednesday a 10th oil bidding round for Dec. 18, but no offshore blocks will be auctioned, Brazil’s government decided it won’t schedule auctions of offshore oil properties because there is a lack of equipment necessary to expand exploration.
“We concentrated (on including blocks) where it is easy to explore,” said the Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao Wednesday at a news conference.The minister said 171 onshore oil blocks would be up for auction. Lobao also said a smaller so-called third round of mature fields would be auctioned on Dec. 3
The government suspended all auctions of so-called subsalt offshore blocks in late 2007 and is considering a reform of the regulatory framework for exploration and production in these areas to raise the state’s share of revenues from the promising deep-water fields.
Weeks before, state-controlled oil firm Petrobras stunned the world with its announcement that the subsalt Tupi field it operated held 5-8 billion barrels of recoverable light oil and gas, making it the largest deep-water find in history.
Since then, officials have said the roughly 800 km (500 miles) long by 200 km (125 miles) wide subsalt band off Brazil’s coast from Santa Catarina to Espirito Santo state could contain 50 to 80 billion barrels of light oil and gas.