Brazil Draws Broad Interest in Offshore Oil Drilling Rights
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/business/energy-environment/brazil-oil.htmlIn a sign of confidence in Brazil as a worthy place to invest, several international oil companies on Friday successfully bid for deepwater drilling rights in some of the richest oil fields of the Western Hemisphere.
Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil of Norway were leaders in the country’s second auction in recent weeks to explore untapped oil reserves in what amounted to a success for the free-market initiative of President Michel Temer, who is highly unpopular.
The auction was part of the government’s effort to open up oil fields to foreign multinationals. But it also was a test to see if oil companies were still interested in pursuing expensive deepwater projects, given that oil prices are still relatively depressed, though rising in recent weeks.
Exxon Mobil, the leading American oil company, was the biggest block winner in the auction last month, and it again won a bid on Friday as part of a Statoil-led consortium.
Eight blocks in total in the Campos and Santos basins were offered at the auction, held in Rio de Janeiro. State-owned Petrobras, which has been at the center of a scandal in recent years, won three blocks, with BP as a partner in two of them....
