Focusing on the necessary legal certainty, which is essential in choosing where to invest, and the changes that need to be implemented to enable the pre-salt exploration, the American Chamber of Commerce in Rio de Janeiro and the Brazil-United States (American Section ) promoted the Seminar 'The change of the pre-salt exploration rule and the outlook for the industry'.

In the opening speech of the event, Paulo Pedrosa, acting Minister and Executive Secretary of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME), noted the time of opportunity for the country's openness to new investments, mainly for the oil market, with the creation of a favorable environment for business "We want to recover the economic logic of the various segments. Our challenge is to bring capital to the country," he said.

In the view of the Ministry, the private sector can take advantage of the fact that the real market opening with the processing of the bill that exempts Petrobras to act as sole operator of the pre-salt, which should happen very quickly from now. The project awaits the vote of highlights in the House and subsequent presidential approval, and has had to date a period of 19 months of discussion in the Federal Congress.

In the government's agenda, local content mechanism for the oil and gas industry is in public consultation to be reviewed. The MME is studying the effectiveness of local content rules over the bidding rounds and industries are competitive and strategic for the country. "We are working to build an alternative that is balanced. We need to define an improvement of the rules for companies to know how the rules will be for the next rounds of bidding. We will build a consensus proposal. Brazil needs to focus where it is competitive, choosing strategic issues it can be improved. " added John Souto, deputy secretary of MME.

The panel discussion counted on the views of Abespetro - Brazilian Association of Petroleum Services Company, Petrobras, PPSA - Pre-Sal Petróleo SA and FIRJAN on the single operator end impacts. 

José Firmo, director of Abespetro highlighted the need for urgency for industrial recovery, in view of the project development time and the need to recovery the market which today has a higher vacancy rate. "We have to seek competitive ways to take the role of the project and turn into seismic, evaluation, exploration and development of production," he said during his speech and put even the multiplicity of operators in the pre-salt is, without doubt, important, but does not solve all the problems.

Karine Fragoso, oil, gas and maritime manager of Firjan presented calculations showing all the pre-salt wealth of potential known today, which, globally, can reach more than 800 billion dollars, and highlighted the need for alignment between the actors of the productive chain of the market for the development of a favorable environment for investors as the local supplier "the domestic industry has prepared its capacity and can meet the demands of the market, but need a regular scale to keep . We can only monetize the pre-salt, and bring resources to the country, to explore it, "she said.

Karine also pointed out that the construction conditions for the competitiveness of industry, with the adoption of public and private instruments coordinated, also depends on a permanent channel of dialogue between the government and the links in the production chain of goods and services.

Carlos Alberto de Oliveira, executive manager of strategy and organization of Petrobras, showed part of the Business Plan and Management 2017-2021 of the company and commented on the company's position with the change in regulation. "It is much better, in logical terms, the option to choose than to be forced to participate in everything," he said.

Oswaldo Pedrosa, CEO of PPSA, made a presentation highlighting the attractiveness differential of the Brazilian pre-salt and the necessary changes in the regulatory framework in the country. "There is still much to be discovered in the pre-salt, the province is in early stages of exploration. The productivity of wells is unique and costs also decreased" he emphasized.

The main points related during the event are the necessary discussions on the minimum price for calculation of royalties, REPETRO, local content, and the development of the gas market.

The event took place on October 18 at the National Confederation of Commerce.