Brazilian authorities expect a law obliging state oil firm Petrobras to operate and invest in all the country’s new Subsalt Polygon developments to be modified soon, according to Reuters.
The current law requires the heavily-indebted, scandal-plagued Petrobras to take a minimum 30% stake in all projects in the Polygon, a resource-rich area off Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
In its cash-strapped condition that commitment is a burden on Petrobras at a time when it is divesting assets, cutting budgets and trying to reduce costs.
Jose Botelho, head of exploration and production policy at the country’s energy ministry, said the revised law should pass the federal legislative body’s lower house in early September.
The government is also planning to reduce the size of quotas for how many local goods and services oil producers must buy.
And it will also allow Petrobras to renegotiate the terms of a 2010 stock-for-oil-swap whereby the company bought 5 billion barrels of oil and gas rights from the federal government for $43bn, now considered an excessive price since the oil-price plunge.
