On Oct. 24, Brazil's Petrobras said its board approved the creation of an independent committee to allow minority shareholders to review planned changes to some of the company's biggest oil and gas leases.
The committee will include two independent board members, Guilherme Affonso Ferreira and Marcelo Mesquita de Siqueira Filho. An independent financial and technical expert will also be appointed, the statement said.
The Brazilian government and Petrobras are negotiating mandatory changes to a contract to exploit up to 5 billion barrels of offshore oil and gas in the so-called Transfer of Rights Areas in the nation's Santos Basin south of Rio de Janeiro.
The Transfer of Rights Areas are located in the subsalt, a prolific offshore region where billions of barrels of oil and gas are trapped deep beneath the seabed by a layer of mineral salts.
Brazil's Congress has approved the main text of a bill aimed at boosting private investment in Brazil's energy industry by allowing companies other than Petrobras to run new oil and gas projects in the subsalt region. Petrobras was expected to pay billions of dollars more for rights to the initial 5 billion barrels (Bbbl), and much more for the right to exploit the additional discoveries.
Petrobras bought the rights, known in Portuguese as the "Cessão Onerosa," for more than $50 billion as part of a more than $70 billion stock sale in 2010. The contract requires renegotiation of the price of the rights and decisions over who will develop additional resources found in the areas since then, and their value.
The committee was set up to assure non-government investors that discussions between Petrobras and the government are conducted fairly and openly, the company said in a statement.
Setting up the committee is Petrobras' latest effort to regain investors' confidence in the wake of a massive corruption scandal. Besides the scandal, renegotiation has been delayed due to financial constraints placed on Petrobras because of its debt load, which at nearly $125 billion is the largest in the global oil industry.
In recent months, both Petrobras and the government have said the company may be entitled to a government rebate on the initial 5 Bbbl. The government has also said it may sell the additional rights to other companies because Petrobras struggles to generate enough cash to develop its vast undeveloped resources.
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