In 2017, the Brazilian federal government plans to hold an auction for unitized areas in the Campos and Santos Basins. This information came from Marco Antonio Martins Almeida, Secretary of Oil and Gas at Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy, while he was attending the 2016 UK Energy in Brazil conference being held in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday (March 1).
The expectation is that somewhere between 10 and 20 areas will be up for offer in the competition. Currently, a working group coordinated by the secretary is studying how the auction will be carried out. “We have elements [in the process of] making bids,” he said.
After the ministry completes its work, the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) will then be authorized to oversee the competition. Also according to Martins, the agency will need four months – from the date of this authorization – to conduct the auction.
Almeida confirmed that, in 2016, the government does not intend to carry out in any competitions for exploration blocks. He also gave assurances the 2017 competition will go forward even if there is a change in legislation requiring Petrobras to be the sole operator of assets in the subsalt polygon
A study by the Energy Economics Group (GEE) at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) indicates that there are 20-25 billion barrels of oil distributed across fields that will require production individualization agreements.
“These are fields that will be coming forward [for offer] in the coming years and it is not yet clear how unitizations for these will be handled in Brazil”, said Alexandre Szklo, a professor with the Energy Planning Program in the Institute for Graduate Studies and Research in Engineering at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (COPPE/UFRJ).
Brazil Energy Insight 
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