The number of companies that signed up for Brazil’s sixth annual sale of oil exploration and production licenses doubled from the previous auction and includes world oil majors, organizers said.

Analysts and company executives have said they were attracted by blocks earlier relinquished by Brazil’s state oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) that will be reoffered soon, due to a high probability of finding oil or gas there.
The country’s oil market regulator, the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), said in a statement world oil majors such as Royal Dutch/Shell, Total, Repsol and Amerada Hess have returned to take part in the auction after one or more years of being absent.
The announcement coincided with a protest by the union of oil workers against the sale. The union says Petrobras has invested in the relinquished areas and should be allowed to develop them.
Brazil will offer a total of 914 oil prospecting blocks.
The Energy Ministry expects the auction to bring $20 billion in investment to Brazil and ultimately boost the country’s oil reserves by an estimated 1.2 billion barrels by 2011 from some 13 billion barrels.
In the government’s fifth annual auction last August, Brazil sold exploration and production rights for 101 blocks out of a total of 908 blocks on offer. Petrobras did most of the buying.