RIO DE JANEIRO, May 14 (Reuters) - Brazil's Petrobras and OGX, Britain's BP Plc andFrance's Total were some of the winners of Braziliandeepwater offshore oil and natural gas exploration blocks in thefrontier region of Brazil's Foz do Amazonas offshore basin at anauction on Tuesday.
The winners bid 40 times the minimum price set by thegovernment to win the rights to the blocks off the state ofAmapá on Brazil's far-northern coast, part of an area known asthe "Equatorial Margin."
A 2012 discovery in neighboring French Guyana raisedexpectations that oil- and gas-bearing structures similar tothose in West African countries such as Nigeria could be foundin Foz do Amazonas and other Equatorial Margin basins.