Rio de Janeiro – Director of the National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuel Agency (ANP), Helder Queiroz, said this Thursday (3) that the13th round for oil and gas exploration block should take place in Q1 2015. "First semester next year, probably in June, we expect to have the 13th," he said, after taking part in Rio Conferences, meeting which gathers representatives of federal and the state of Rio de Janeiro’s government, investors and oil and gas specialists to discuss the sector, at the Rio’s Art Museum (Arte do Rio), in Praça Mauá, central region of the city of Rio de Janeiro.
Queiroz informed that the areas to be offered should be announced by the end of the year. "By the end of the year, we can announce the set of areas which may be offered at the 13th round and then start the process to initiate procedures for organizing the auction."
According to the director, the idea is to vary the offer of places. "We have been studying. For the concession areas, we have been moving toward activities that diversify exploration and production, especially because the country is huge and sedimentary basins need to be better studied. So, we are trying to keep this guiding principle, be it in mature areas, be it in new-frontier areas."
According to the director, the ANP plans to prepare a calendar to make auctions more predictable. He recalled that a survey was conducted in an international event to evaluate what would be the best regularity of the rounds for oil producers.
"The answers greatly vary and the one that pleased most was every two years. For the concession, given the set of different opportunities, we may even have the rounds annually, as much as we had two rounds of concession last year with very different opportunities. We had offshore, equatorial margin which is a new frontier, inland mature basins. Afterwards, we had another round for gas. So, as regards set of opportunities, we are able to offer it, but we also need to see the companies’ capacity, in function of the results they have been obtaining, if they are able to take part as well," he said.
As regards pre-salt, Queiroz said that, at first, the period should be every two years. He ruled out an auction for this activity in 2015. "Next year, probably not. We had already worked for that goal, Next year, the idea is to have a round for concession and, in 2016, one for pre-salt," he added.
*Translated by Rodrigo Mendonça
