Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras expects to do exploratory drilling next year near the mouth of the Amazon River, along the coast of the state of Amapa, Chief Executive Jean Paul Prates said on Wednesday.
The region is part of Brazil's Equatorial Margin, an area that Petrobras considers its most promising new frontier for oil and gas exploration.
Petrobras currently lacks the greenlight from environmental protection agency Ibama to explore the area, but Prates said he expects Petrobras will be drilling off Amapa in the first half of 2024. He still kept open the possibility that the drilling could come later in the year.
The Equatorial Margin is a roughly 2,200-km (1,370-mile) stretch of deepwater and ultra-deepwater assets along Brazil's northern and northeastern coast.
The area Petrobras is looking to drill is located south of where Suriname is exploring for oil and close to Guyana, where Exxon Mobil has discovered major oil reserves.
Drilling in the region is a controversial topic in Brazil due to the region's biodiversity and proximity to the Amazon rainforest.
Earlier this year Petrobras appealed a decision by Ibama denying a license to drill an exploratory well in the region, saying it lacked a proper environmental assessment of the project. The agency has no deadline to judge the appeal.
(Reuters - Reporting by Marta Nogueira and Leticia Fucuchima; writing by Fabio Teixeira; editing by Jonathan Oatis)