São Paulo – Qatar Petroleum was one of the winners of the 5th Production Sharing Round in the Pre-Salt, held this Friday by the National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), in Rio de Janeiro. In a consortium with ExxonMobil, Qatar Petroleum acquired the block of Titã, in the Santos basin, Brazil’s southeast coast.
The consortium’s operator will be ExxonMobil, with a 64% share. Qatar Petroleum’s share, via its subsidiary QPI Brasil, is 36%.
“This is Qatar Petroleum’s third success in Brazil in less than a year, which expands out footprint in one of the most prospective basins in the world,” said Qatar Petroleum’s president, Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi (picture above), according to a statement by the company. “This winning bid constitutes another milestone on the road of achieving our strategy of creating a large scale, value-adding international portfolio, while pursuing Latin America as an important core area for Qatar Petroleum,” he added.
Since October 2017, Qatar Petroleum has acquired four blocks for exploration and production in three bidding rounds in Brazil, every time as part of a consortium with other companies.
In this Friday’s round, four blocks were offered by ANP. Besides Titã, Saturno, Pau-Brasil and Sudoeste de Tartaruga Verde. The round raised BRL 6.82 billion (USD 1.77 billion) in signing bonuses, with Titã accounting for BRL 3.125 billion (USD 810 million).
The Brazilian government expects to collect with these blocks, in royalties and taxes, BRL 240 billion (USD 62.35 billion) in the next 35 years.
By the production-sharing regime, the Brazilian central government keeps part of the oil and natural gas production of the blocks. The consortiums offered a 170.58% premium on the minimum percentage established by the tender call. In the case of the Titã block, the premium was of 146.48%, which means that 23.49% of the production will be kept by the Brazilian central government.
Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
