Oil Regulator News

Brazil's right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro fired the chief executive of oil producer Petrobras - the second in two months - after the company refused to sell fuels at a discount to consumers warning it would lead to diesel shortages. Bolsonaro also called for the election of a new board, according to a statement released close to midnight local time on Monday by the state-controlled company, opening the way to a full executive management shake-up.José Mauro Ferreira Coelho is the third Petrobras CEO fired by Bolsonaro over fuel prices.

Brazilian state-run oil firm Petrobras plans to restart operations in the coming days at two ships used in offshore oil production that suffered coronavirus outbreaks, an executive told journalists during a call on Friday.Petrobras Exploration and Production Director Carlos Alberto de Oliveira said operations at the Cidade de Santos should restart over the weekend, and operations at the Capixaba should restart within 10 days. Both are large ships known as FPSOs.Brazil's offshore oil industry has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus.

OPEC, Russia and other allies outlined plans on Thursday to cut their oil output by more than a fifth and said they expected the United States and other producers to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered by the coronavirus crisis.But the group, known as OPEC+, said a final agreement was dependent on Mexico signing up to the pact after it balked at the production cuts it was asked to make. Discussions among top global energy ministers will resume on Friday.The planned output curbs by OPEC+ amount to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) or 10% of global supplies…

OPEC and it allies held talks on Thursday on record oil output curbs of about 15 million barrels per day (bpd) or more, roughly 15% of global supplies, to support prices hammered by the coronavirus crisis, sources involved in the discussions said.They said the plan included cuts of about 5 million bpd from producers outside the group known as OPEC+ and could be made gradually, as the group seeks to overcome resistance from the United States whose involvement they see as vital to a deal.Talks have been complicated by friction between OPEC leader Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC Russia…

A small amount of crude oil belonging to Royal Dutch Shell Plc leaked during a ship-to-ship oil transfer in Brazilian waters last month, the company confirmed to Reuters on Monday.About 200 milliliters of crude were released on Nov. 30 during the maneuver, which was halted after the drip was detected, Shell said, adding that authorities were notified and the incident left no trace of oil in the sea.However, a letter obtained by Reuters and sent to Brazilian environmental regulator…

Brazil has more than doubled the number of risky ship-to-ship oil transfers this year, but its monitoring of such offshore maneuvers is lax, to a point where a July 2017 collision between two tankers was not reported, according to a Reuters review of government and shipping records.Transfers are projected to keep rising as the country's deep-water discoveries have lured major companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc to recent offshore auctions. During these maneuvers, ships pull alongside one another and oil is transferred to a vessel via high-pressure hoses.

Italian oil major expects to invest $1.795 billion in three offshore Mexican oil fields by 2040, according to a development plan approved by Mexico's oil regulator on Tuesday.The plan covering the Amoca, Mizton and Tecoalli shallow water fields is the second one approved by the regulator, known as the National Hydrocarbons Commission (CNH), following a landmark 2013 energy opening that has led to more than 100 oil and gas contracts being awarded in a series of auctions.Eni sees initial crude oil production of 8…

A record 16 oil companies, including heavyweights like Royal Dutch Shell Plc, have registered to participate in the so-called fourth round of bidding for stakes in Brazil's coveted pre-salt layer, oil regulator ANP said on Thursday.American firms Chevron Corp and Exxon Mobil Corp, Norway's Statoil and France's Total SA are also registered for the June auction of blocks in the offshore play, where billions of barrels of oil are trapped under a thick layer of salt below the ocean floor.(Reporting by Roberto Samora and Alexandra Alper; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Chevron Corp is considering taking part in an oil auction next month in Brazil as part of a consortium of companies, Brazilian oil regulator ANP said on Tuesday on its website. The auction, slated for March 29, will offer 70 blocks in the offshore Ceará, Potiguar, Sergipe-Alagoas, Campos and Santos basins and on-shore basins of Parnaíba and Paraná. The deadline to register for the auction is Wednesday. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chevron did not bid in an October auction that opened Brazil's offshore pre-salt play to foreign operators and was dominated by Royal Dutch Shell Plc. However, Chevron is seeking to ramp up its production in Brazil.

Oil companies operating in Mexico's deep waters must use national suppliers for 8 percent of the projects by 2025, the government said on Tuesday, a relatively low rate meant to encourage foreign and private firms to bid on contracts. Mexico's oil regulator has scheduled its first-ever deep water auction in early December for 10 blocks in the Gulf of Mexico, after constitutional amendments in 2013 ended a nearly eight-decade monopoly by state oil firm Pemex. The low rate would allow companies to rely less on Mexican suppliers, which have limited expertise in the country's largely unexplored deep waters. The rule set a 3 percent minimum in 2015…

Oil companies have paid Mexico's oil regulator nearly $80 million for seismic data ahead of an auction for deep water fields, suggesting robust interest in the tender despite a lasting slump in the price of crude. Thirteen companies, including Exxon Mobil, BP and BHP Billiton, have paid a total of 1.38 billion pesos ($78 million) to date for licenses to use deep water data, according to a document from national oil regulator CNH seen by Reuters. Company executives say the sum reflects only a fraction of their spending in the past year to acquire geological data ahead of the Dec. 5 auction, which will feature 10 largely unexplored blocks in the Gulf of Mexico.

Contract awards for Mexico's first-ever deepwater oil auction covering 10 potentially lucrative blocks are expected to take place on December 5, oil regulator CNH said on Friday, a tender that will test investor interest given a worldwide price slump.   The 10 blocks are located in the country's territorial waters in the Gulf of Mexico.   A formal vote to approve the date is expected to pass by a unanimous vote of CNH commissioners.   (Reporting by David Alire Garcia)

Brazil's Subsalt Polygon, an offshore area that has already yielded some of the world's largest recent oil finds, may hold enough undiscovered petroleum and gas to supply the world's current oil needs for more than five years, researchers said. The Polygon, which covers most of Brazil's Santos and Campos offshore sedimentary basins, contains at least 176 billion barrels of undiscovered, recoverable resources of oil and natural gas (barrels of oil equivalent), according to study released last week by Cleveland Jones and Hernane Chaves of the National Institute of Oil and Gas (INOG) at Rio de Janeiro-State University. That is more than four times the 30 billion to 40 billion boe already discovered in the area.

Mexico, which has started to open its nationalized oil industry to additional private investment, will postpone auctions for deep-water oil exploration and production contracts and adjust the terms of upcoming tenders after an inaugural oil auction failed to meet the government's modest expectations. Energy Minister Pedro Joaquin Coldwell told local television the government will change rules that scared off potential bidders earlier this month, when it was able to auction only two of 14 blocks in a pivotal oil and gas tender. He signaled that the government will relax its requirement that consortia bidding on oil parcels must have one member act as a guarantor and hold shareholder equity of at least $6 billion to protect the state's interest in the event of a major accident.

Mexico auctioned only two of 14 blocks in a pivotal oil and gas tender on Wednesday, falling far short of the government's modest expectations as it begins to open up the long-nationalized industry to private investment. Both the shallow water exploration and production contracts were awarded to the same consortium made up of Mexico's Sierra Oil & Gas, U.S. firm Talos Energy and Britain's Premier Oil. The other 12 blocks received no bids, or none that cleared the bar set by Mexico's finance ministry. All told, it was an inauspicious start to the rollout of President Enrique Pena Nieto's signature economic reform. In the second block up for grabs, the consortium offered 55.99 percent of pre-tax profits to the state, plus a 10 percent additional work program commitment.

Brazil state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA stopped production on Sunday from its P-40 platform in the offshore Marlim Sul field after a gas leak on the vessel, an oil workers' union said on its website on Monday, citing worker reports. The P-40, a semi-submersible production platform, was producing about 45,915 barrels (7,300 cubic meters) of oil and 800,000 cubic meters of natural gas a day when it was shut down, the union said. The P-40 is at the hub of a network of five platforms in Marlim Sul and at the center of oil and gas pipelines that interlink undersea natural gas pipelines into a single export line to the coast. It is also interlinked to a pipeline system that exports oil from the neighboring Marlim field.

Mexico's oil regulator voted on Friday to relax rules on bidding terms and contracts that form the first step in a historic sector opening that kicks off this summer with the public auction of 14 shallow water fields. The July auction will mark the first of five packages of oil fields up for grabs, part of a so-called Round One tender that follows a major energy reform approved by Congress last year. The constitutional reform ended the decades-long monopoly enjoyed by state-owned oil company Pemex and aims to reverse a decade-long slide in Mexican crude output. Responding to complaints from private and foreign companies, the national hydrocarbons commission, or CNH, eliminated caps on how many contracts firms can bid on.

Mexico's oil regulator voted on Friday to relax previously established rules on bidding terms and contracts that form the first step in an historic sector opening that kicks off this summer with the public auction of 14 shallow water fields. The July auction will mark the first of five packages of oil fields up for grabs, part of a so-called Round One tender that follows a major energy reform approved by Congress last year. The constitutional reform ended the decades-long monopoly enjoyed by state-owned oil company Pemex and aims to reverse a decade-long slide in Mexican crude output. Responding to complaints from private and foreign companies, the national hydrocarbons commission, or CNH, eliminated caps on how many contracts firms can bid on.

Four Petrobras oil platforms off the northeast coast of Brazil have halted production after a leak of about 7,000 liters of oil was detected coming from a pipeline linking them, a local oil workers union head said on Friday. Brazil's oil regulator, ANP, confirmed the leak in the Camorim field, 16 kilometers (10 miles) off the coast of the city of Aracajú, and said it had already been contained by Petrobras. The director of the Sindipetro oil workers union for Alagoas/Sergipe Basin, Stoessel Chagas, said the leak was detected coming from a pipeline linking the PCM-5 and PCM-6 production platforms of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is officially known. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Brazil oil regulator says 3 dead, 10 injured in Petrobras platform explosion   An explosion at an offshore Petrobras oil and natural gas platform killed three workers and injured 10 more, Brazil's oil regulator ANP confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.   The explosion, caused by a gas leak, occurred on a floating oil platform (FPSO) called Cidade de São Mateus which is owned by Norwegian-listed BW Offshore and contracted to Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known.     (Reporting by Stephen Eisenhammer; Editing by Chris Reese)

Petroleo Brasileiro SA began operating the furnaces in the atmospheric distillation unit at its Abreu e Lima or "RNEST" refinery near Recife, said the state-run oil company in a statement on Thursday. Those approvals mean the refinery can soon start producing both gasoline and diesel fuel, the ANP said on Thursday. The refinery was originally expected to start operations four years ago. The Brazilian state of Pernambuco has limited processing capacity at the first train to processing 45,000 barrels a day of crude, or 39 percent of the train's capacity, until sulfur and nitrogen control systems are fully operational. A second 115,000 barrel a day train is expected to start operation sometime in the second half of 2015.

Brazil will export more crude oil in 2014 than it will import, Magda Chambriard, director general of Brazil's oil regulator, the ANP, said on Tuesday. If her prediction comes true, the oil-trade surplus will be Brazil's first since 2012, when the country exported $20.3 billion of crude oil and imported $13.4 billion, according to Brazil's commerce and trade ministry. Brazil had an oil trade deficit in 2013, importing $16.3 billion of crude oil and exporting $13 billion, the ministry said on its website. As most of Brazil's oil output is heavy crude oil and its refineries operate best with light crude, Brazil exports domestic oil to buy lighter, imported grades.

Chevron Corp. and Transocean Ltd. are being sued for $22 billion in environmental damages in Brazil, double initial claims, after a federal prosecutor filed a second lawsuit over oil spills off the nation’s coast, according to Bloomberg. Chevron committed “a series of errors” which led to the March spill at Frade, the second incident at the offshore oil project, the federal prosecutors’ office said yesterday. Prosecutor Eduardo Santos de Oliveira is also seeking to halt operations at Frade and block San Ramon, California- based Chevron from transferring profits from Brazil. “The oil spill at the Frade field hasn’t been contained,” Oliveira said.