In a debate on The Chamber's TV station, the President of IBP - Brazilian Institute of Oil, Gas and Biofuels, João Carlos França de Luca, defended the commencement of the exploration of pre-salt by small private companies. For the Institute, the Petrobras direct hiring - without the bidding process - as the only pre-salt operator may result in problems for the Brazilian market and Petrobras.

IBP gathers more than 70 companies, which correspond to 20% of the Brazilian oil industry investment. Petrobras itself, responsible for the 80%, is an IBP shareholder; although Lucas has emphasized that the company has been neutral about that subject in IBP. On Tuesday (29th), in a public hearing of the special committee on Pre-salt exploration and production, he presented the entity contributions to the debate on Bill 2502/07, of Deputy Eduardo Valverde (PT-RO), who has attached Bill 5938/09, introduced by the government.

Luca emphasized that there is no room for the performance of other private agents and that Petrobras will always have a leadership role, since it retains the major part of exploration technology. The suggestion of the government is that Petrobras operates the pre-salt fields, with the possibility of sharing system partnerships, once the oil was discovered and the operation risk would be very low. "But there are less noble pre-salt areas, in which the chances of success in the drilling are not that great as the treasure of the recent discoveries", he said.

Besides, he believes that the exploration of smaller areas might be delayed, due to the lack of interest by Petrobras, or become too expensive, once that the company will be obliged to operate all enterprises. He emphasized that, for the same reason, if there are bidding processes, Petrobras will be obliged to work with partners that were not chosen.

Unconstitutional measure
Therefore, even for Petrobras that has a joint venture, it is believed by the IBP that the direct hiring without the bidding process is something unconstitutional. According to Luca, the bidding process is compulsory when the Union decides to hire a company to explore areas that have a monopoly, such as oil. He quoted as a Supreme Court decision, stating that Petrobras is not a company that provides public service and cannot be considered "Union delegate", what would suspend the bidding processes.

Deputy Miro Teixeira (PDT-RJ) was concerned about the idea of a legal dispute, since he considered the weakening of Petrobras - just the opposite of what is expected. "We are considering the oil, but this subject is a fertile ground for lawyers", he warned.

During the debate, the Deputy Paulo Teixeira (PT-SP) defended the proposal. Teixeira believes it is necessary to privilege Petrobras, since Petrobras made the biggest investment in the discovery. "We will still carry out a debate on constitutionality, but the procurement regulation law provides the waiver and in the pre-salt case, we will be fair selecting the actors", he said.

Petro-Sal
For Wagner Freire, former Director of Petrobras Production and Exploration, working in the Brazilian market for over 40 years, the proposal (Bill 5939/09) to a new state-owned company - Petro-Salt – become responsible for managing the operations is dangerous. According to Freire, Petro-Sal will not be able to supervise the companies that explore the wells, since it would demand an expertise that is not available and would only be acquired by the exploration.

For IBP, the problem is the excessive power of Petro-Sal in the operational committee of each enterprise. For the institute, it is not an issue if the company represents the Union interests; however, the market is concerned that the intervention might affect the operations. Thus, the entity requests the removal of the veto power of Petro-Sal in the committee, in a sense that it takes part and supervises, without interfering in the daily operation.

Absence
Júlio César Carmo Bueno, Secretary of Economic Development, Energy, Industry and Services of Rio de Janeiro, did not attend the hearing.

Reporting - Marcello Larcher
Edition - Marcos Rossi
Translation - Grupo Solucion-SP Language/Thiago Capatti