Brazil's lower house and senate should approve the four bills that revise the country's oil industry rules by the end of the year, Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said Thursday.

Next year, the new regulatory framework will be established and new auctions for the exploration and development of the subsalt oil region can be held, Lobao told journalists at the sidelines of an event with Portuguese oil company Galp Energia SPGS SA (GALP.LB).

The new regime will give Brazil's government a greater stake in offshore oil reserves in the promising subsalt oil region, where several of the world's biggest oil finds in recent years have been made.

The government first announced its plans for the new regime in late August. Subsalt oil discoveries lie under some 2,000 meters of water and another several thousand meters of sand, rock and a shifting layer of salt.

The new rules will greatly limit the space for international oil companies to profit from the prolific new region, and give Brazil's state-oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, an operating stake in all not-yet-licensed oil or gas acreage in the subsalt region.

-By Jeffrey T. Lewis, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; +34 91 395 8120; djmadrid@dowjones.com

(Bernd Radowitz in Madrid contributed to this article)