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LatAmOil: Petrobras shareholders seek to narrow scope of 17th Bidding Round

Brazil’s national oil company (NOC) Petrobras has been asked by a group of shareholders to eliminate more than a dozen offshore blocks from the roster of sites included in the 17th Bidding Round, a set of auctions scheduled to take place on October 7.

The group in question is Anapetro, an association formed by Petrobras employees who own stock in the NOC. In a public letter, the association urged Petrobras to reduce the number of offshore blocks in the 17th Bidding Round from 92 to 78.

It explained its request by noting that it had singled out 14 blocks that lie within environmentally sensitive areas. These areas include the Abrolhos archipelago, which is home to many coral reefs, and the Fernando de Noronho archipelago, they said.

The letter quoted Mario Dal Zot, the president of Anapetro and the head of judicial affairs at Brazil Oil and Gas Workers Unified Federation (FUP), the country’s largest union of oil workers, as saying that Petrobras did not have a strong enough justification for including these 14 blocks in the auctions. “Participating in this auction is reckless, given its judicial and environmental fragility and also the effective risk to Petrobras’ image,” he said.