Government wants to auction oil and gas blocks beyond the 370 km limit of Brazil's continental shelf and increase reserves by 50%.

Brazil will have a 'pre-salt mirror' for sale in the next two years. An area the size of Uruguay has already been recognized

A new frontier for oil exploration in an area the size of the pre-salt layer is in the government's sights for the private sector. The Ministry of Mines and Energy intends to include in auctions, over the next two years, exploratory blocks at sea beyond the limit of 200 nautical miles (about 370 kilometers from the coast) established by the United Nations (UN) as the country's economic exclusivity area .

The main focus is the strip close to the pre-salt layer. Experts calculate that the exploration of this maritime area could increase the volume of oil and gas reserves in Brazil, currently estimated at 15,9 billion barrels, by 50%.

The studies are advanced and will be auctioned in 2020 or 2021, for the first time, blocks that can extend up to the limit of 350 nautical miles, almost 650 kilometers from the coast. The greatest potential seen is in the strip adjacent to the pre-salt layer, in the Santos Basin, in the Southeast.

Specialists and government technicians have referred to this area as the “mirror of the pre-salt layer”. This is because the region is as rich as the pre-salt layer, whose reservoirs discovered in the last decade already account for 57% of oil production in Brazil.

The limit of 350 nautical miles is the new milestone that Brazil has claimed for its legal continental shelf with the UN since 2004, with the aim of expanding its exploration of mineral wealth at sea. Fifteen years later, Brazil had its first victory a month ago: the UN published on its website in June the expansion of the limits of the continental shelf from 200 to 300 miles in the Southern Region.

This recognition already corresponds to an increase of 170 square kilometers — equivalent to the territory of Uruguay — in the area that can be economically exploited by Brazil. The potential of this area is still unknown, but the UN's positive sign indicates that the country has a chance of success in the other two requests made, referring to the North coast and the Southeast coast, where the pre-salt layer is located.

These are areas already studied by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), by the Brazilian Geological Survey and by the Navy, which found evidence of reserves not only of oil, but also of other minerals, such as cobalt and manganese. That's why the military calls this coastal strip the Blue Amazon.

There is an understanding in the government that, after making a request to the UN to expand the platform, a nation can offer this area to private exploration (restricted to the extension of the geological concept of continental margin) due to a precedent opened by Canada.

In a process similar to that of Brazil, the North American country granted oil companies the exploration of oil prospecting areas in the range between 200 and 350 nautical miles from its coastline, still without a final definition by the UN. Therefore, the Brazilian government intends to do the same from 2020.

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