(WO) – Brazil’s National Agency of Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP) has approved a new resolution governing the assignment of oil and gas exploration and production contracts, replacing ANP Resolution 785/2019, the framework that has applied to farm-ins, farm-outs and other transfers of upstream interests for more than five years.
The resolution also abolishes the Committee for the Evaluation of Partnership Proposals (CAPP), created under ANP Ordinance 132/2022. CAPP evaluated and recommended to the agency’s board whether to approve requests involving contract assignments, changes of operator, substitution of or exemption from performance guarantees, and changes of concessionaire or contractor resulting from mergers, spin-offs or incorporations. Those duties will now be carried out directly by the ANP technical departments involved in each assignment process, under a normative instruction the board approved at the same time.
The ANP said the new rule incorporates improvements identified while the previous regulation was in force, aiming to close gaps, clarify provisions, correct inconsistencies and strengthen legal certainty in assignment processes.
The agency framed the change as part of a broader effort to modernize and simplify its regulatory governance. Removing an intermediate review layer is intended to make decisions more efficient, predictable and faster, while keeping specialized, multidisciplinary technical analysis of each request. The board retains decision-making authority and an integrated view of the contracts and parties involved, the ANP said.
Assignment approvals are a routine but critical step for upstream deals in Brazil, where operators regularly reshuffle stakes in pre-salt, post-salt and onshore concessions and production-sharing contracts, and where a change of operator or guarantee structure requires agency sign-off before a transaction can close.
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