Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent
LOS ANGELES, July 13 -- Brazil will likely hold two auctions for oil and gas exploration blocks in 2008, but will exclude rights to blocks in the presalt layer until passage of a new regulatory law.
"We are going to promote the resumption of the Eighth Round, and also hold another auction that will involve land areas and the fringes of the presalt area," said Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao. "An auction including the presalt area will only be held after a new regulatory law has been passed."
Lobao said 15 exploratory drillings have been made in Brazil's presalt area so far, but that additional wells needed to be drilled to determine the area's status. "Only then will we know whether the presalt area should be treated as an ocean of oil or just various reserves," the energy minister said.
Earlier in the week, Lobao told the state news agency that the government will have found a solution by the start of 2009 to the oil sector rule changes planned for exploitation in subsalt areas.
It was recently reported that Lobao meanwhile plans to propose to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva the creation of a new state-run firm that would manage oil discoveries made in recent months in the subsalt layer of the Santos basin (OGJ Online, July 7, 2008).
Contact Eric Watkins at [email protected].