The Secretary for oil, natural gas and biofuels at the Mines and Energy Ministry, Marco Antonio Almeida, announced at the opening ceremony of Rio Oil & Gas (Monday), the 13th bidding round for exploration and production concessions for next year.

The rounds are important for the sector of oil and gas industry and were requested by the industry, which has also asked for a fixed calendar, according to the president of the Brazilian Institute of Oil, Gas and Biofuels (IBP), João Carlos de Luca.

According to the director general of the ANP, Magda Chambriard, the country plans to double production of reserves by 2020/2022. "All of our work is directed toward these technological and discovery efforts."

On occasion, João Carlos de Luca said that the oil and gas industry has identified challenges in various segments. "I see a great paradox in this matter: we have a potential for large reserves in the pre-salt to develop, with extraordinary level of investments, but the industry as a hole is not in good shape," he said.

Marco Antonio Almeida in response to those concerns, noted that the completion of one round per year does not necessarily ideal for the country. He also reported that in the first half of next year it will be the first auction of natural gas pipelines.

The director of gas and energy at Petrobras, Alcides Santoro, said that the company has registered consecutive monthly production records and growth of 2% per month over the past seven months. "In August we achieved record production of 2.232 million barrels / day."

The president of the Pre-Salt Oil SA (PPSA), Oswaldo Pedrosa, recognized that the company has an extremely important task in the pre-salt, but noted that the area is of enormous complexity. According to Pedrosa the desire for accelerated development it is necessary to reconcile the rapid development, with foreign exchange generation and supply on a competitive basis.

The Governor of the State of Rio de Janeiro, Luiz Fernando Pezão, recalled that one third of the development of pre-salt will be in Rio, capital with 18 of the 21 research centers that are being installed in Brazil.

Opening the conference was also attended by the president of the National Organization of the Petroleum Industry (ONIP), Eloi Fernández y Fernández and the president of the World Petroleum Council (WPC), Joszef Toth.

De Luca released the first edition of the IBP 2014-2015 Priority Agenda with the main claims of the industry to ensure competitiveness. The document addresses all the challenges facing the industry and brings the positions of the IBP on each topic.