Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 25 July – Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency (ANP) will auction 313 gas and oil blocks in a licensing round from 27-28 November, the national oil agency has announced

The ANP said Tuesday that the offshore and onshore hydrocarbons blocs lie in nine sedimentary basins in various Brazilian states, with a total area of 90,000 square kilometers.

The so-called New Round of licensing aims to “increase Brazilian reserves, minimizing foreign energy dependence on natural gas and promote prospecting and maintenance of self-sufficiency in oil production,” said the ANP.

The ANP has already collected around US$ 3.3 billion in licensing round fees, in addition to boosting oil production from 865,000 bpd in 1997 to 1.8 million bpd last year, making Brazil self-sufficient in oil.

Brazil’s oil and gas industry has grown by 300 percent in the past decade, noted the ANP, and presently accounts for around 11 percent of GDP.

In the coming four years, oil and gas production will get investments of US$ 30.7 billion in 6,059 companies, some 3,130 of them Brazilian, such as state energy firm Petrobras. (macauhub)