RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 31 (Xinhua) -- Brazil announced on Monday new oil exploration rules to increase state control over its recently discovered offshore oil reserves.

    Under the plan, the state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras will be the sole operator of the new oil reserves. It will also have a minimum 30-percent stake in all future projects in the pre-salt layer fields.

    The regulations also foresee the creation of a new state-owned company called Petrosal to manage most of the exploration and production in the oil fields.

    The government said the new oil rules will not affect the pre-salt blocks already being explored or those which are undergoing public biddings.

    The new regulations have yet to be approved by the Brazilian Senate and the House of Representatives. However, Petrobras has announced it will get a capital boost of 50 billion U.S. dollars to cope with future oil exploration.

    Petrobras has announced a series of discoveries of oil and gas deposits in the pre-salt layers located below a 2,000-meter-thick layer of salt off the Brazilian coast since late 2007, when the company made public the find of the first big field, Tupi.

    The offshore reserves are estimated to contain between 14 billion and 50 billion barrels of oil.