New Players in the Brazilian O&G Market - Starfish Oil & Gas
The first opportunities in the O&G market were identified by the company in the group of licenses granted by the National Petroleum Agency (ANP) to Petrobras in the so-called Round Zero, in August of 1998. Through negotiations, the company gained 7,5% participation in the licenses of Coral and Starfish Fields, in development phase, and to the BS-3 Block, in exploration phase, all offshore, in the southern part of the Basin of Santos, along the coast of the States of Paraná and Santa Catarina. This places the company in a good strategic position as these areas all have high O&G recovery potential and are not too far from the coast, which is an important factor in terms of logistics costs and accessibility.
Today, Starfish participates as operator in 17 onshore blocks in the Recôncavo, Potiguar and Sergipe-Alagoas basins in northeast Brazil and 3 offshore shallow water blocks located at the Santos and Campos basins. The company is awaiting confirmation from the ANP on two blocks which were acquired during the eighth bidding round (2006) in the Tucano Sul Basin. As a non-operator, Starfish participates in 1 exploratory block and a field in the production phase operated by Petrobras, located in the Recôncavo Basin, in addition to carrying out geological and geophysical studies in various concessions. Starfish has also been participating as an operator in a drilling campaign of 8 firm wells and 2 contingent wells. In November 2007, Starfish participated successfully in the ANP’s Ninth Bidding Round in consortiums with different companies it presented winning bids for 11 exploratory blocks. 2 blocks are located in shallow waters (up to 400 meters), in Campos Basin (C-M-498 e C-M-622) and 1 in shallow waters in Santos Basin (S-M-225). They are blocks with excellent potential leads, which have already been mapped and are located near various oil production fields.