January 9, 2019
Congressmen, Mendonça Filho (DEM-PE) and Eli Corrêa (DEM-SP) filed bills 11191/2018 and 11211/2018, respectively, to end the pre-salt polygon area of the Campos, Santos and Espírito Santo. Mendonça Filho also signed PL 11192/2018, which determines the end of the production sharing regime and opens the possibility for the government to convert the contracts into concession.
All three of the projects are being processed in PL 6083/16, by Representative Celso Pansera (PT / -RJ), which creates rules for unitization of pre-salt areas with areas not yet tendered by the federal government. Mendonça Filho himself filed a petition in December for the separation of the projects because they had different themes.
The joining is part of the strategy set up by Mendonça Filho, who says that he closed with Corrêa to apply for joining so that his projects can be unleashed in the next legislature. Mendonça Filho disputed a vacancy for the Senate and was not elected.
The deputy from Pernambuco admits that he has not heard the Bolsonaro government to propose the matter, but says that he talked to some consultants related to the oil and gas sector. He believes that the current administration, however, will endorse the idea. “It is a government that has no prejudice with private and foreign investment,” he says. It is worth remembering that the DEM is the main party that is forming the base with Jair Bolsonaro (PSL), who has already announced support for the re-election of the current president of the House, Rodrigo Maia (DEM-RJ).
The PL that determines the end of the production sharing in the country provides that the production-sharing contracts may be converted into concession contracts provided that in agreement with the companies, maintaining the economic-financial balance of the contract and the estimate of revenue to be received in the form of government participation. ” The parameters for this conversion would be published by decree of the Presidency of the Republic and revised every five years.
“It is not true that the sharing regime guarantees more resources for the Union. In fact, studies indicate that only in very specific scenarios – in which large-volume fields with high values per barrel of oil are combined – is the generated resources equal to or greater than the grant. It should be noted, however, that one of these fields is Libra, and the results cited did not prove this hypothesis “, justifies the congressman from Pernambuco.
PLs 11191/2018 and 11211/2018 are identical and provide for the end of the pre-salt polygon. It would be up to the National Council for Energy Policy (CNPE) to define which areas would be tendered in the production sharing model.
“It should be emphasized that the decision of a strategic nature related to the choice of the regime for granting the aforementioned areas will be under the full control of the Brazilian State, with mandatory participation of the National Council of Energy Policy – CNPE and the Presidency of the Republic, allowing the legitimate exercise of the monopoly provided for in the Federal Constitution, “say the projects.
The new minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, said during the inauguration ceremony of the new president of Petrobras, Roberto Castello Branco, that the government intends to improve the system of production sharing in the country. He denied, however, that it is in the plan to end the regime.
Recently, the president of PPSA, Ibsen Flores Lima, defended the end of the polygon of the pre-salt to give attractiveness for the bidding of areas with lower volume of oil in the region. Unitizable areas, for example, end up not attracting interest or make sense only to companies that are already in the adjoining contract.
MME’s former executive secretary, Márcio Félix, quoted to return to the Ministry of Oil and Gas’s Office, also defended the end of the pre-salt polygon following the TCU’s decision to remove exploratory blocks SM-534 and SM -645, in the Santos Basin, of the ANP bidding round.
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