Now completed the relevant promotion phases of Uruguay Round II for offshore oil exploration and production, the process is now in the phase of qualification for interested companies and presentation of bid offers. After the launching phase on September 8, 2011 several Uruguay Round II road shows followed at the main world oil centers (Houston, London and Rio de Janeiro), as well as personalized data rooms for interested oil companies that showed the existent geological information of the 15 blocks for the three offshore basins: Pelotas, Punta del Este and Oriental del Plata.

In each road show ANCAP presented to the interested companies the geology, the exploratory potential, the contract model (considered as the most developed of the region), the features of the Uruguay Round II bid process, and the business environment in Uruguay. In addition, tens of data rooms have taken place to analyze all the available geological information, and ANCAP continue to work with each interested company to support it in the information analysis and the preparation for the Uruguay Round II.

In addition to the oil companies that were present during the launch event (Bridas Corporation, Medanito, Petrobras, SCDM Energie, Total, BP, Noble Energy, YPF, Gazprom, Cove Energy, Petrina, Schuepbach Energy, and Tierra Resources) other companies attracted by the bid were present at Houston (Anadarko, Apache, Exxon Mobil, Shell, BHP Billiton, Conoco Phillips, Chevron, Noble Energy, Tullow Oil, Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil, Repsol, Cove Energy, Kosmos Energy, and Source Energy.), in London (TOTAL, BG Group, Statoil, Panoro Energy, Premier Oil, Cairn Energy and Lukoil) as well as Rio de Janeiro (OGX, Niko Resources and El Paso). Several of them asked and have received data rooms from ANCAP, including companies as KNOC and CEPSA that contact directly ANCAP for that purpose. Almost three hundreds executive officers of the main world oil companies have participated in the promotion phases of the Uruguay Round II, as well as hundreds of executive officers of service companies related to the oil exploration activities (between them Platts, IHS, Deloitte, Spectrum, PGS, Weatherford, ABS, FIT, FUGRO, Geokinetics, and Landocean), what means for ANCAP the interest the Uruguay Round II has for the oil sector.

Lucking still almost three months for the bid closing date, the oil companies began to qualify for the bid, what is considered a positive signal for the outcomes of the bid. The available 2D seismic information was already sold to interested companies for an amount of around U$S 25 millions. In addition to this available seismic information, ANCAP has a new and exclusive seismic study, that adds more details and complements the available information for all the offshore basins, and was sold to interested companies for around U$S 2 millions. During the next weeks ANCAP will be signing a contract for the processing of this new seismic information.

The contracts to be signed with the winning bidders will be done by the Sharing Production Agreement format. Until March 1, 2012 the oil companies has time to send its interest letter to ANCAP, as well as the documentation that allow them to qualify for bid offer presentation. The qualified companies can present its proposals between March 22 and 29. This last day at 15 p.m. ANCAP will open the bid offers received as representation of the full transparency of the bid, and has until September 25, 2012 to define the winning proposals and companies.

Tags: ANCAP