By Marta Nogueira
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jan 18 (Reuters) - Petróleo Brasileiro SAwill appeal a court decision that suspended bidding for thelease of a first floating production, storage and offloading(FPSO) platform for the giant Libra off-shore oil field, thecompany said on Wednesday.
The Brazilian shipbuilders association Sinaval obtained aninjunction suspending the bidding process based on its argumentthat the auction did not comply with Brazil's rules for localcontent.
Libra, in the subsalt region of the Santos basin, is Brazil'slargest oil reserve with an estimated 8 to 10 billion barrels ofoil that are a key operation for the recovery ofstate-controlled oil company Petrobras.
The first production platform is scheduled to startoperating in 2020.
Petrobras won a first decision arguing that it had tried tocomply with local content rules but the tenders were too costly,but Sinaval succeeded in overturning that ruling.
"Petrobras will appeal against the injunction that suspendedthe bidding for the Libra FPSO lease," the company said in astatement.
Petrobras exploration and production director Solange Guedessaid last week that the Libra consortium should be freed of thelocal content obligations so it could lease a platform.
The Libra consortium is operated by Petrobras (40 percent), Shell (20 percent), Total (20 percent) andChinese companies CNPC and CNOOC (10 percent each). (Reporting by Marta Nogueira; Editing by Bernard Orr)