By Fabio Teixeira and Marta Nogueira
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) -Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras and Norway's Equinor were the big winners in a Wednesday auction for areas in Brazil's offshore pre-salt region, acquiring one oil block each and partnering to develop a third.
Australia's Karoon Energy also acquired one block, and China's CNOOC and Sinopec formed a consortium to acquire another.
Brazil's pre-salt area - vast deepwater fields under a thick layer of salt below the ocean floor - produces
most of the country's oil. Discoveries made there nearly two decades ago turned Brazil into one of the world's biggest oil producers.
BP made a large pre-salt discovery this year, renewing interest in the area and boosting expectations for the auction.
"This result showcases a renewed interest in the Brazilian pre-salt, following up the successful Bumerangue discovery from BP," said Flavio Menten, upstream analyst at Rystad Energy.
Still, two of the seven blocks up for bids received no offers. Only eight of the 15 firms signed up to participate in the auction made offers, with oil majors such as Shell and BP not bidding.
Shell's decision to stay out of this auction reflected a "disciplined approach" to capital allocation, the firm said in a statement.
"We are very satisfied with the result of the auction," said Artur Watt, director general at oil regulator ANP.
The auction rules set fixed signing bonuses and awarded the blocks to bidders based on how much oil production they offered to cede to Brazil's government.
The Petrobras-led consortium with Equinor acquired the Jaspe block, beating out a consortium of Chevron and QatarEnergy by offering 32.9% of the profit oil from the block, the highest percentage in the auction.
Petrobras alone acquired the Citrino block with a 31.2% offer, while Equinor won the Itaimbezinho block with an offer of 6.9%, the lowest in the auction.
Karoon offered to cede 14.1% of production from the Esmeralda block and the CNOOC/Sinopec consortium won the Ametista block with a 9% bid.
While three of the five blocks were undisputed, all offered a percentage above the minimum set by ANP.
(Reporting by Fabio Teixeira and Marta Nogueira; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Brad Haynes and Nia Williams)
