Six firms bid for Uruguay offshore natgas drilling

MONTEVIDEO, April 30 - Six foreign companies have presented offers to explore a natural gas deposit off Uruguay's Atlantic coast, the Uruguayan state-run oil company said on Wednesday.

The discovery of a deposit of natural gas and possibly oil off the costal resort of Punta del Este has sparked hopes of energy independence in Uruguay, which relies on imports to meet its fuel needs.

Brazil state-run energy company Petrobras, Australia's BHP Billiton and Portugal's Galp, were among the bidders, along with Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and Argentina's Pluspetrol and YPF, an Argentine unit of Spain's Repsol.

The Uruguayan government has divided the exploration area into 11 blocks of between 4,00 and 8,000 square kilometers (between 1,544 and 3,088 square miles).

The companies will now have until June 30 to present exploration budgets for the blocks being bid upon, ANCAP, Uruguay's state oil company, the company said in a statement.

Uruguay's Energy and Industry Minister Daniel Martinez has said it would take at least three years to find out whether the Uruguayan deposit was commercially viable and that any production would not start for at least eight years.

ANCAP buys a million barrels of crude roughly every 25 days to help Uruguay meet its domestic fuel needs.