Minerals Report - International Seabed Authority

the state organ set up to exclusively exploit the petroleum and natural gas
resources of the country. In order to take advantage of technological and
other advances in the global community, Dr. Viera de Macedo said that in
1995, the Government of Brazil enacted a constitutional amendment (number
9) whose objective was to modernize the country. As part of this process, Dr.
Viera de Macedo said that new regulations were enacted for the petroleum
and natural gas sector. He said that the basic law in this regard, popularly
known as “ the Petroleum Law ”, or Law number 9478 was enacted on 6
August 1997. Under this law, he said that the previous regime, consisting of a
state monopoly on petroleum and natural gas activities was discarded and
replaced with an entity called the National Council on Energy Policy, and a
National Petroleum Agency.
Dr Viera de Macedo said that the Agência Nacional de Petróleo (ANP)
or the National Petroleum Agency was established by Presidential decree
number 2445, on 14 January 1998, to control the development of petroleum
and natural gas, and to promulgate legislation to govern the sector, including
participation by other companies. He said that since Brazil did not have
petroleum legislation at the time, ANP had to promulgate a series of
legislation in this regard. He provided participants with some of the
legislation (ordinances) that were promulgated by this body in respect of
offshore petroleum exploration. These included, inter alia,
a. Ordinance number 80 that deals with equipment and facilities for
the transportation of petroleum and natural gas;
b. Presidential decree number 2705 of 1998 that regulates the
Government take in the oil industry;
c. Ordinance number 155 that provides criteria for use in
determining petroleum reference prices;
d. Ordinance number 169 that regulates the use of gas pipelines;
e. Ordinance number 170 that establishes the ANP as the body to
authorise new oil and gas operations;
f. Ordinance number 188 that regulates the activities of petroleum
prospecting companies;
Ordinance number 200 that regulates the millennium bug in the
industry;
INTERNATIONAL SEABED AUTHORITY 843