Petroleo Brasileiro SA Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said a review of Brazilian oil laws isn’t yet finished and there is no timeline for delivery to the President.  The global credit crunch and economic slowdown has led to the delay, Gabrielli told reporters today in Brasilia.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva ordered a review of the country’s oil-rights auctions after the November 2007 announcement that Petrobras, as the oil producer is known, had discovered a 5 billion- to 8 billion-barrel field near Rio de Janeiro. The Tupi field was the largest discovery in the Americas in three decades. All offshore areas near Tupi were pulled from an auction set for the same month.

“We are still working and there is no deadline,” said Gabrielli, a member of the goup reviewing the rules. “The world economic situation changed.” The committee, which also includes ministers and the head of the national petroleum regulator, was supposed to have handed Lula its report in September.

Energy Minister Edison Lobao, a member of the committee, said March 13 that the report was nearly complete and would be presented to Lula “soon.” He also said committee members favored the creation of a new state-owned oil company to own and manage the rights to un-leased areas for the government.

Lula, Lobao and Gabrielli have all said that existing lease contracts owned by Petrobras, Exxon Mobil Corp., BG Group Plc., Galp Energia SGPS SA, Repsol YPF SA and others wouldn’t be changed under any new system.