Brazil's Petrobras Looking Into Asset Acquisition In South America, Africa - CEO

Brazil's energy giant Petrobras may venture into energy asset acquisitions in Africa and neighboring South American countries, CEO Jean Paul Prates told Sputnik

VIENNA (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th July, 2023) Brazil's energy giant Petrobras may venture into energy asset acquisitions in Africa and neighboring South American countries, CEO Jean Paul Prates told Sputnik.

The CEO's comment comes on the heels of media reports that Petrobras is looking into issuing more bonds as well as acquiring new assets after years of divesting from upstream and downstream ventures. The energy giant's CFO, Sergio Caetano Leite, has told Bloomberg that the company is reversing its divestment strategy due to a combination of strong cash generation and low production costs. According to the CFO, the company collected up to $6.3 billion in potential orders from almost 400 investors during a preliminary discussion of a 10-year bond with a yield of roughly 7.25%. At the same time, Petrobas's gross debt is currently estimated at $53.3 billion, the lowest since 2010.

"In the equatorial margin of South America we are exploring the particular basin on one of the edges. On the other edge, there is (the) Amazon basin, offshore, deep water. Very interesting basin in terms of geological potential.

We are looking at that in parallel to Guyana and Suriname, for instance, we may look at offshore Venezuela, if the terms and fiscal regimes allow," Prates told Sputnik on the sidelines of the OPEC International Seminar in Vienna.

The energy giant is also looking at the expansion of its operations in Colombia, Bolivia and Argentina.

"We have good findings of natural gas offshore Colombia before the Panama Isthmus, we are looking at Bolivia again, if, again, fiscal terms help, we can come back to Bolivia because in there we have infrastructure already inserted in the country: the GASBOL pipeline � the Bolivia-Brazil pipeline � which is a 30 million cubic meters per day capacity pipeline running at a half of that," the executive noted.

Petrobras may renew its presence in Angola and look into Namibia as African basins are very similar to its activities in Brazil, according to the CEO.

At the same time, the Brazilian company is talking to the Scandinavian countries about renewable energy technologies.