Registered companies largely exited stage left
Brazil suffers acreage sale setback
Bidding round deemed a disappointment after most operators steer clear
The bruising economic and financial toll of the pandemic may have started to ease, but licensing rounds are still feeling the effects. Brazil’s latest offshore offering—the 17th bidding round—failed to attract more than two bidders, raising just BRL$37mn ($6.7mn) from five blocks. Four basins were available to the nine registered companies: Chevron, Shell, TotalEnergies, Brazilian NOC Petrobras, Colombian state firm Ecopetrol, US independent Murphy Oil, Australian firm Karoon, Germany’s Wintershall and Brazilian independent 3R Petroleum. But despite this varied slate of IOCs and NOCs, only the pre-salt Santos basin attracted winning bids. Shell took a stake in five blocks, one in consortium
Also in this section
16 April 2025
Israel continues to strike new oil and gas concession agreements and gas exports continue to rise, but an overreliance on Egypt remains the big concern
15 April 2025
Loss of US shipments of key petrochemical feedstock could see Beijing look to Tehran with tariffs set to upend global LPG flows
15 April 2025
Australia’s East Coast Gas projections for a supply shortfall have been pushed further out, but the challenge to meet evolving gas demand and the shifting assumptions around the fundamentals remain just as stark
15 April 2025
Long-delayed prospects for onshore LNG production in Mozambique have improved thanks to US financing approval, but security challenges blight way ahead
