Brazil confirms São Paulo blocks for 12th licensing round

Brazil's southeastern state of São Paulo will have five blocks on offer during next month's 12th oil and gas licensing round, industry regulator ANP announced Thursday. The concession areas are among 19 blocks available in the Paraná basin, which straddles 50,000km2 in the states of São Paulo and Paraná. ANP director general Magda Chambriard and São Paulo governor Geraldo Alckmin were due to reveal details of the blocks late on Thursday, according to an ANP statement. Scheduled for November 28-29, the 12th licensing round will offer 240 exploratory areas from seven sedimentary basins. Total acreage covers 168,342m2 - about the size of Uruguay - in the states of Amazonas, Acre, Tocantins, Alagoas, Sergipe, Piauí, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Bahia, Maranhão, Paraná and São Paulo. Some 110 blocks are located in frontier areas in the basins of Acre, Parecis, São Francisco, Paraná and Parnaiba. "[This] is a way of attracting investments in little known regions with technological barriers that need to be overcome, leading to new natural gas production fields from conventional and non-conventional sources," ANP said. A further 130 blocks have been included from mature areas in the Recôncavo and Sergipe-Alagoas basins.