OCTOBER 27, 2017
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Oil majors Royal Dutch Shell RDSA.L and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) won blocks in Brazil’s coveted pre-salt oil region in an auction on Friday.
Shell was part of consortia that won two of the four blocks on offer in the first part of an eight block auction.
Exxon, in a consortium with Norway’s Statoil (STL.OL) and Portugal’s Petrogal, a unit of Galp Energia (GALP.LS), won another. There were no bids for the fourth block.
Another four blocks will be auctioned later on Friday. The eight blocks on offer contain a total of more than 12 billion barrels of estimated oil reserves.
President Michel Temer’s government has enacted reforms to make the energy sector more attractive to foreign investment, and for the first time international oil firms will be allowed to operate fields in the region known as pre-salt.
Oil in the region is trapped under thousands of feet of salt beneath the ocean floor of Brazil’s deep Atlantic waters.
The quality of reserves and the reforms have made Brazil an important target for oil majors, even though they have had less appetite for capital-intensive mega projects since crude prices crashed in 2014.
Brazil has big hopes for the volume of oil the companies can pump from the blocks. Brazilian oil output could double to more than 5 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2027, compared with the 2.6 million bpd produced in August, regulator ANP said on Thursday.
Shell (RDSa.L) has said it is confident it can pump from the pre-salt fields at below $40 a barrel.
Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) set the stage for its bids in this round in September, when the U.S. oil major won 10 blocks near the pre-salt in another auction.
(This story was refiled to add Petrogal ownership, company code in third paragraph.)
Writing by Alexandra Alper and Simon Webb; Additional reporting by Luciano Costa and Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Editing by Jane Merriman and Susan Thomas
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
