Qatari state-owned petroleum company, QatarEnergy, in a consortium with France’s TotalEnergies, and Malaysia’s Petronas, has been awarded the Agua-Marinha Production Sharing Contract (PSC), under the 1st Cycle Permanent Offer round, by Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Biofuels.

Under the terms of the PSC and associated agreements, QatarEnergy will hold a 20 percent working interest, alongside the operator Petrobras (30 percent), TotalEnergies (30 percent), and Petronas Petroleo Brasil (20 percent).

“We are pleased to achieve this latest successful joint bid, which adds further highly prospective acreage to our upstream portfolio in Brazil, particularly in the prolific Campos Basin. We are delighted to achieve this success with our valued partners Petrobras, TotalEnergies, and Petronas. I wish to take this opportunity to thank the ANP and the Brazilian authorities for this opportunity and for their ongoing support.”

Mr. Kevin McLachlan, Senior Vice President of Exploration at TotalEnergies, stated that, “TotalEnergies is pleased to expand its presence in the Campos Basin with this new exploration block, alongside three strategic partners. This is in line with our strategy to focus exploration on selected high potential basins which can deliver material low cost, low carbon intensity resources.”

Covering an area of 1,300 square kilometers, the Agua-Marinha block is located in water depths of about 2,000 meters off the coast of Rio de Janeiro in the prolific Campos Basin.

The acquisition, which is expected to close in the first half of 2023, further establishes QatarEnergy as one of the leading upstream players in Brazil, where it already holds working interests in two producing fields and numerous exploration blocks, as per the statement.