No announcement yet: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva
Brazil won't announce changes to oil law
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will not announce changes to the country's oil legislation Friday, Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said.
On Friday, Lula will celebrate the first subsalt oil production in the Santos basin, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo states.
State-run energy giant Petrobras will start long-term tests at the Tupi field, pumping 30,000 barrels of crude per day, said a Reuters report.
Quoted by the local Estado news agency, Lobao said that work on possible changes that would give the government a greater stake in newly discovered oil deposits has not been completed.
"We're finished at the Mines and Energy Ministry, but it wasn't possible to hold the interministerial meeting in order for the president to be given the proposals," Lobao told reporters.
"Since there isn't any hurry, we're still looking at new suggestions," Lobao said.
Lobao said that he was pushing for the creation of a new state-owned oil company that would administer exploration contracts for subsalt regions that are not yet under concession.
The new company would be based on the so-called "Norway model."