Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee today announced that one of the world's largest oil companies, Petrobras, has been awarded exploration rights for oil and gas in the previously unexplored Raukumara Basin on the east coast of the North Island.
Snaring Petrobras is arguably Brownlee's biggest coup since emphatically putting the "welcome" mat out for oil and gas explorers over the last 18 months, and wooing oil majors at a global petroleum conference in Mexico earlier in the year.