Brazil sets out licensing plans

摘要

Brazil plans to carry out 10 auctions between now and 2019, including four this year covering onshore, post-salt and sub-salt assets starting in May. The energy ministry aims to hold one marginal basin round, one onshore and post-salt round, and one sub-salt round apiece in 2018 and 2019. Brazil previously conducted annual licensing rounds, starting with a round zero in 1998 that dismantled state-controlled Petrobras’ upstream monopoly. The tenders offered oil firms regular opportunities to expand their upstream portfolios, aside from a sixth round in 2006 that was later cancelled owing to a growing impetus for legal changes for contracts connected to Brazil’s newly discovered sub-salt reservoirs.