Brazil signs production-sharing agreement with oil consortium to develop huge offshore field

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, listens to Petrobras' President Gracias Fortes during the signing ceremony for the first contract of Brazilian Pre-Salt oil field, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Dec. 2, 2013. Brazil has just signed a contract with a consortium of four foreign companies and one Brazilian, for the extraction of its largest oil field to date. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) (The Associated Press)

Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, right, embraces Brazil's Petrobras President Graca Fortes, during the signing ceremony for the first contract of Brazilian Pre-Salt oil camp, at the Planalto presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Monday, Dec. 2, 2013. Brazil has just signed a contract with a consortium of four foreign companies and one Brazilian, for the extraction of its largest oil field to date. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) (The Associated Press)

Brazil has signed an agreement with a consortium of five oil companies to develop a huge offshore field under the so-called production-sharing regime that gives the federal, state and municipal governments a 75 percent stake of the oil extracted.

In October the consortium made up of Brazil's state-owned oil company Petrobras, Shell of the Netherlands,. France's Total and Chinese state companies CNOOC and CNPC won the right to develop the Libra offshore field. It could hold up to 12 billion barrels of oil.

President Dilma Rousseff says Monday's signing establishes "the basis for a more just and less unequal nation and for a period of prosperity that will benefit Brazil for many decades."