Brazil's energy policy council CNPE authorized oil regulator ANP to put 11 pre-salt blocks in the Campos and Santos basins up for sale permanently, with a total signing fee estimated at 1.3 billion reais ($233 million), the government said on Thursday.
That system until now had been used for areas with less potential and did not include pre-salt blocks.
The government is trying to speed up development of the pre-salt area in view of the advances in the global transition towards low-carbon emissions.
Despite the permanent offer, the 11 blocks will also be auctioned under a production-sharing regime in which the winners will be bidders who offer the highest percentage of the so-called profit oil to the government. That is production beyond a theoretical break-even. And they pay a fixed signing fee.
Five of the 11 blocks have already been offered in earlier auction rounds but had no takers, such as Itaimbezinho, Norte de Brava, Bumerangue, Cruzeiro do Sul and Sudoeste de Sagittarius.
The remaining six blocks to be offered in future auction rounds are Agata, Agua Marinha and Esmeralda in the seventh round and Jade, Turmalina and Tupinamba in the eighth round.
For these areas, the CNPE established minimum excess oil rates to be paid to the government, ranging from 4.88% in the case of Tupinamba to 22.71% for Norte Brava.
State-controlled oil company Petrobras has a pre-emptive right that has to be exercised within 30 days of the publication of the CNPE resolution.
The council estimates the investment potential for all 11 areas to be 150 billion reais if commercial oil or natural gas reserves are discovered.
($1 = 5.5747 reais)
(Reporting by Marta Nogueira; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)