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
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