Brazil auctions off oilfields

Some forty-four international and domestic oil companies are today bidding for the rights to exploit oil in Brazil's rapidly developing petroleum industry.

The National Petroleum Agency, the government regulator, has put up for tender twenty-three blocks in nine areas, both onshore and offshore.

The one-day auction follows a similar bidding round last year which ended the forty-five year monopoly enjoyed by the state-owned company Petrobras.

Industry analysts quoted by The Financial Times newspaper say the winning bidders could pledge investments of about one billion dollars over the next few years. Among those bidding are Texaco and Exxon Mobil of the US, Anglo-Dutch Shell, France's Total-Fina Elf, as well as Petrobras.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service