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Brazil authorises Ecopetrol to transfer stake in Saturno block to subsidiary
THE government of Brazil has given Colombia’s national oil company (NOC) Ecopetrol a green light to proceed with the transfer of a minority stake in Saturno, an o shore block in the Santos Basin, to a subsidiary company.
Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy announced its decision on July 17 in the Diario O cial de Brasil.
e new policy is subject to the approval of the ministry and Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), as well as the customary closing conditions, Eco- petrol said in a statement.
e ministry’s move clears the way for the NOC to turn 10% of equity in Saturno over to Ecopetrol Oleo e Gas Brasil. e Colombian company acquired the stake under a farm-in deal that it struck with a liates of Royal Dutch Shell (UK-Netherlands) and Chevron (US) last December.
Equity in Saturno was originally split 50:50 between Shell Brasil Petroleo and Chevron Brasil Oleo e Gas, but both companies agreed to make a 10% stake available to Ecopetrol.
“Previously, this percentage was equally held by Shell Brasil Petroleo and Chevron Brasil Oleo e Gas,” the NOC noted in a statement.
ANP awarded Chevron and Shell a 35-year production-sharing contract (PSC) for the Sat- urno contract area in September of last year, when it concluded the country’s h pre-salt bidding round. The PSC named Shell as the operator of the block and stated that the Brazil- ian government would be entitled to 70.2% of its production.
Saturno lies o shore in Brazil’s Santos Basin, o the coast of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro States. It covers about 1,100 square km.
Ecopetrol is also participating in the devel- opment of four other pre-salt contract areas in Brazil. It is working onshore at elds in the Foz de Amazonas, Santos and Potigar and Ceara basins, and it also has a 20% stake in a consor- tium that was set up to explore Pau-Brail in the Santos Basin. e remaining equity in the project is split between the operator BP, with 50%, and China National O shore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), with 30%. ™
ANP
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