RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Plc (L:RDSa) expects to sign an agreement to join up, or unitize, its Parque das Conchas offshore fields Brazil's Campos Basin with an area owned by Brazil's government by early next year, the local-unit president said on Wednesday.
Part of the oil and gas resources in Parque das Conchas extend into an un-leased area of Brazil's Subsalt Polygon, an area under government administration, and under Brazilian law the resource must be developed jointly by Shell, its partners India's ONGC and Qatar Petroleum, and the government.
Andre Araujo, president of Shell in Brazil, said he hopes Brazil's oil regulator ANP will approve the unitization before the first oil output from the third phase of the Parque das Conchas development is planned to begin in March.