INFOLOGIS

Change incorporates an area of 960 thousand square kilometers to the area of national sovereignty at sea, today 3.5 million km2 [...]
Measure, which has no backing of the UN, expands the rights of Brazil for oil and gas [...]
Brazil decided not expect the backing of the UN (United Nations) to expand beyond 200 nautical miles, the boundaries of its sovereignty over mineral resources such as oil and gas in the seabed.
From a ministerial resolution published last Friday, any nation or company that wants to prospect for mineral resources in the Brazilian Continental Shelf will have to ask permission to the government.
According to Folha, the decision was made following consultation with Petrobras, which can have up to 50% of capital in the hands of the Union once it is completed the capitalization process in progress.
Today, the Union holds 39.8% of the company.
The change incorporates 960,000 km ², almost four times the state of Sao Paulo, the area of national sovereignty, now about 3.5 million km ².
It is an area coveted because of the possible existence of new oil reserves in the area of pre-salt.
LAW OF THE SEA
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 1982, opens the gap for countries to claim rights over the ocean up to 350 nautical miles from its coast. In addition, therefore, the Exclusive Economic Zone of 200 miles.
For this merger occurs, the signatories of the Convention need to give the UN a mapping its continental shelf, a kind of underwater extension of sovereign territory.
Brazil has forwarded this request to the UN in 2004, but three years later, the organization rejected the proposal, after questioning the U.S..
Then, the UN ordered that the Brazilian government reformulate the election.
The UN has not accepted include 190 000 km2 distributed from the Amazon to the south of the country. The navy, Brazil disagreed and intends to present new proposal until 2012.
Asked by Petrobras, however, the CIRM (Interministerial Commission for Sea Resources) felt that the country does not need to wait for the seal of the UN.
Now it is up to the ANP (National Petroleum Agency) decide on the research of mineral resources in the area. Sought, the ANP was not manifested.
A decree of 1988 and a 1993 law has defined that any research on the continental shelf could only be made by other nations with government authorization and monitoring of the Navy, and that Brazil exercises sovereignty rights over it for exploitation of resources natural.
Moreover, the country is anchored in the fact that the UN sets conditions and limits of sovereignty over the continental shelf.
GEOLOGY OF THE CONFUSION
Continental shelf extensions are flat or almost flat from the seabed, which end in the ocean depths.
They are formed by sedimentary rocks, exactly the type of rock on which to form oil and natural gas. Hence the strategic interest of Petrobras in these regions.
The only country that has concluded a survey on your platform before Brazil was Russia.
The election of Russia was also questioned, since it included portions of the Arctic in dispute between the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway.
In 2007, Russia sent a minisubs to the Arctic to cast into the sea a Russian flag, symbolizing the supposed sovereignty of the country on the region's mineral resources.
The expedition has caused a diplomatic incident with Canada that the deed called a "sham."

Source: Folha de S. Paulo