Brazil Oil Regulator to Decide Next Week on Petrobras Appeal

Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, or ANP, will decide next week on an appeal by state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, to exclude an oil block in the Campos Basin from a government auction in November.

Petrobras had won a concession for the C-M-273 block in an auction in 1998, but had to return it to the agency earlier this year, since it had passed a deadline to declare any oil finds in the block commercially viable, an ANP press official said Tuesday.

Petrobras says it was about to declare an oil field in the block commercially viable when the ANP revoked the concession. The ANP says the intention came nine days too late.

Petrobras has appealed the ANP's decision to include the block in the upcoming oil block auction, but the prosecutor general at the ANP has advised the agency to turn down the company's appeal, ANP Director Haroldo Lima said Tuesday, according to the ANP press official.

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