By Jeffrey T. Lewis and Luciana Magalhaes

SAO PAULO--Brazilian oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, in consortium with CNOOC Petroleum and CNODC Brasil, won the right to produce crude from the Buzios oilfield at an auction held Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro.

Petrobras will own 90% of the field, and the other two will own 5% each. The group offered the government the minimum bid of 23.24% of the oil produced from the field, and will pay a signing bonus of $16.9 billion. The bids were based on the percentage of oil each consortium offered to the government.

Brazil's National Petroleum Agency estimates that there are up to 15 billion barrels of crude in the pre-salt fields. State-controlled Petrobras has already explored the blocks up for sale Wednesday, which are located in the Santos basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, and produced oil from them.

Brazil was the world's ninth-largest oil producer in 2018, pumping 3.4 million barrels of oil equivalent daily, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. But production could more than double to 7.5 million barrels per day by 2030, according to Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, or ANP.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com