Economy Minister Paulo Guedes acknowledged that the level of inflation is a problem for the country, but considered that there is a wave of future investments that will guarantee more jobs and growth in the Brazilian economy. Guedes gave the declaration after the auction of the Second Round of Bidding for the Surplus Volumes of the Transfer of Rights, under the production sharing regime, held today (17) by the National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), at Windsor Barra Hotel, in Barra da Tijuca, west side of Rio. Two blocks in the pre-salt in the Santos Basin were offered at the event: Sépia and Atapu.
“It is true that we are having difficulties and inflation is rising, that the Central Bank has to fight inflation and raise interest rates. This slows down, but if on the one hand we have this return to difficulty, on the other we have the return of a huge investment platform being formed in Brazil. Oil, natural gas, mining conducted by our minister Bento Albuquerque, and this is all a guarantee of future investment. It guarantees growth and more resources”, he pointed out.
Guedes highlighted that with the auctions of the first and second rounds, there was an increase in voluntary transfers of resources to states and municipalities. “The first round of the transfer of rights, which we carried out in 2019, was a very important initial step for us in Brasília, because we have arrived without parliamentary support and precisely the use of the federal principle, which is more resources for states and municipalities, more Brazil, which is where the people live, ended up being an axis of collaboration with Congress, which also helped us and at that time we made voluntary transfers to states and municipalities, dividing and sharing these resources from the transfer of rights. It was an important step for us”, he added.
For the minister, the final balance of the event is not just in the R$ 11.140 billion achieved with the signing bonuses. “It’s not just the 500,000 direct and indirect jobs that go to the population and our workers. It is not just in the BRL 120 billion, which are now BRL 302 billion in special participations plus taxes that the government will receive in the future, it is also in the BRL 200 billion in investment commitments already made”, he said, adding that the government has contracts in the last three years, with the result obtained from the second round being approximately R$ 844 billion in investment commitments.
The general director of the ANP, Rodolfo Saboia, stated that the auction had an extraordinary result that exceeded expectations. Only with the amounts that will be applied by the winners in the acquisition of existing assets and in the operation over the years, the estimate is to obtain R$ 204 billion.
“By themselves, these numbers would already represent the success of the auction, but the great news is that we were able to obtain competition by raising the percentage of excess oil in oil from 15.02% to 37.43% in Sepia, which means a premium of almost 150% and in the case of Atapu, the premium was even higher, 438%, going from 5.89% to 31.68%. With that, we guarantee more resources that will be destined to the Brazilian society also in the long term, through a much bigger collection on the profit of the oil production resulting from the auction”, he said, noting that the five winning companies of the event increase the diversity of the Brazilian pre-salt oil exploration and production scenario, “bringing even more dynamism to the sector”.
