The Chamber reviews the legal framework for exploitation of pre-salt
The Chamber reviews four Bills that make up the legal framework of the oil exploitation in the pre-salt area. The Executive Branch conducted the proposals on Tuesday (2), with a request of constitutional emergency, which would oblige the Congress to review the issues in 90 days (45 days for each House). If the deadlines were violated, the proposals will interfere in the agenda of The Floor.
However, on Wednesday (9), the President of the Chamber of Deputies, formally announced to The Floor that the President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva had decided to withdraw the regime of constitutional emergency from the four Bills. In exchange, the Chamber, committed itself to speed up the debate of the issue and vote within 60 days.
The Bills
According to the Executive Branch, the Bill aims are: creating economical and legal conditions for the exploitation of pre-salt and deciding the allocation of the resources created by the extraction and sale of oil. The new oil border of the Country does not commercially produce yet, but the government is willing to assure the rules of exploitation.
In a general way, the Bill 5938/09 defines the new regime of recruitment of the area, the so-called production sharing model; the Bill 5939/09 creates a state-owned company to deal with agreements on exploitation of pre-salt; the Bill 5940/09 institutes the Social Fund that will centralize the revenues from the sea extraction, and the Bill 5941/09 authorizes the Union to assign pre-salt non-bid areas to Petrobras.
Petrobras strengthened
Petrobras is strengthened with these proposals. It will be responsible for following up the activities of extraction and production of all blocks assigned under the new recruitment regime. In areas that will be bid, a minimum sharing of 30% will be assured to Petrobras. Besides, the Union will increase its sharing in the company’s capital, strengthening its cash for investments in the oil province.
Timeline
The layer of pre-salt is a range localized under the sea floor that extends into roughly 800 km of size and 200 km of width, from Espírito Santo to Santa Catarina, and includes three basins of exploitation (Espírito Santo, Campos e Santos), a sum of 149,000 km2.
The oil found is in depth that may reach more than 7,000 m (from the surface line), in a 2 km salt layer of thickness, which according to geologists preserves the oil quality, although the extraction becomes more complex and expensive.
Only at the end of 2007, Petrobras publically confirmed the existence of a huge province, and on September 2008, it was extracted from the Jubarte field, in the Bacia de Campos, the first oil (4,500 m depth).
Reporting - Janary Júnior
Edition - Marcos Rossi
Translation - Grupo Solucion-SP Language/Edgar Casadei