Brazil may allow companies besides Petrobras to bid for the right to produce extra oil from areas it sold to the state-led oil company in 2010, the head of the exploration and production policy at the energy ministry, Jose Botelho, said on Wednesday.

Botelho also said the government may allow Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, to pay with oil for adjustments in the price of the maximum 5 billion barrels of oil and equivalent natural gas it is allowed to produce in the areas.

(Reporting by Marta Nogueira, writing by Jeb Blount; Editing by Daniel Flynn)