Four offshore blocks awarded under Brazil's 5^th pre-salt bid round

The Brazilian National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) has awarded four offshore blocks under the framework of the 5^th Production Sharing Round (5ª Rodada de Licitações de Partilha da Produção)). The blocks will be operated under the production-sharing regime, according to which winning companies are those which offer the Brazilian State, from a minimum percentage set in the tender protocol, the largest portion of the produced oil and gas (the largest portion of profit oil).



In the Santos Basin, Shell and Chevron were awarded the Saturno offshore block with 50% stakes each, while ExxonMobil and its co-venturer Qatar Petroleum (QPI) won the Titã block with respective shares of 64% and 36%. BP, CNOOC and Ecopetrol won the Pau-Brasil block (with respective stakes of 50%, 30% and 20%). Eventually, Petrobras secured the Sudoeste de Tartaruga Verde block in the Campos Basin. The Round raised R$6.8bn (US$1.7bn) in signing bonuses and R$1bn (around US$250m) in planned investments on the exploration phase.



The latest round of this type was the 4^th licensing round, which took place in June 2018 (4ª Rodada de Licitações de Partilha da Produção) and offered the Três Marias, Dois Irmãos, Uirapuru, Saturno and Itaimbezinho offshore blocks in the Campos and Santos basins, within the Pre-salt Polygon. Equinor won interests in the Uirapuru and Dois Irmãos production sharing contracts (PSCs). Uirapuru will be operated by Petrobras (30%) and Equinor (28%), ExxonMobil (28%) and Petrogal Brasil (14%) will also take part in the project. Equinor (25%), Petrobras (45%, operator) and BP (30%) will own the Dois Irmãos block.