Brazil’s Petrobras is offering a farm-in opportunity for four exploration blocks in the country’s southernmost maritime province, covering part of the Pelotas basin.

Petrobras owns a 50% operating stake in the BM-P-2 concession area, which includes the four blocks on offer, denominated P-M-1269, P-M-1271, P-M-1351 and P-M-1353.

France’s Total holds the remaining 50%, but the two companies are working together to offer a buyer a stake of between 30% and 65%, Petrobras said in a “teaser” prospectus published this week.

Interest in the Pelotas basin waned after Total drilled an expensive dryhole in neighbouring Uruguay in 2016, at a water depth of 3400 metres, but the region remains under-explored, with suggestions of analogies with the Cretaceous plays of West Africa and Guyana.

The Pelotas basin frontier acreage is scheduled to be one of the plays on offer in the 18th Brazilian E&P bid round, scheduled to be held in 2021, according to the National Petroleum Agency (ANP).

The BM-P-2 concession is located in water depths between 1000 and 2000 metres, and was acquired by Petrobras in 2004 in Brazil’s 6th licensing round.

Total became a partner with the acquisition of its 50% stake in 2013.

In its teaser prospectus, Petrobras said the concession presents a “reduced exploratory commitment with the potential to prove significant volumes and establish a position in a new exploratory frontier".

Interested bidders must submit qualification documents by 3 January, Petrobras said.

Exploration

Petrobras to farm out Pelotas frontier acreage