HOUSTON -- Oil and gas industry authorities in Ecuador plan to launch a new sale of exploration rights on a fresh tract of land, and will be touring the world starting this month to sell companies on the opportunity.

Yesterday, the Hydrocarbons Secretariat of Ecuador, known by its Spanish acronym SHE, announced a global round of meetings with interested energy industry insiders to tout 13 prospective, potentially oil-rich blocks in a region near the border with Peru.

In a release, Wilson Pástor, Ecuador's minister for nonrenewable resources, called the tour the beginning of "a new era of exploration in Ecuador."

Officials at the Houston office of the energy industry consultancy IHS said they would host a "roadshow" to highlight the blocks that will be put up for lease, along with the terms of the sale and details on how new drilling would proceed in Ecuador. IHS is host of the annual CERA Week conference held here every March, which is considered one of the largest energy conferences in the world.

The first meeting is scheduled for Bogota, Colombia, on Jan. 30. Neighboring Colombia's oil and gas industry is being revived as rural violence from drug trafficking and an insurgency subside. Having the first meeting in Bogota may be a sign that Ecuador is interested in investment from Colombia, despite past tension between the two governments.

Houston will host the second meeting between oil and gas executives and Ecuadorian officials Feb. 4. Other meetings will be held in Paris, Beijing and Singapore through March.

IHS said the blocks may contain as much as 100 million barrels of oil. Though they've been relatively unexplored to date, the firm says two-dimensional seismic imaging data have been taken for eight of the 13 blocks the government wants to offer for lease.

IHS spokeswoman Melissa Manning said she was unaware whether the proposed exploration area encompassed any national parks or other sensitive areas. Maps show a national park in Ecuador's southeast corner, but not the famously untouched yet oil-rich Yasuni National Park, which lies in the northeast.

IHS says the 13 blocks Ecuador's ministry will offer to sales of exploration rights are each around 247 square kilometers. At each meeting, Ecuadorian government representatives will be on hand to talk about the resource potential of the blocks, as well as "details regarding available data, data packages, legal terms, social work program requirements and submission requirements."