Brazil’s Petrobras will be focusing on Africa as its main growth region abroad, the company’s chief executive told Reuters in an interview, listing Ivory Coast, Angola, Nigeria, and Namibia as specific destinations for investment.
“We are experts in the eastern margin of Brazil,” Magda Chambriard said. “The correlation between Brazil and Africa is unequivocal, so we need to go to Africa.”
Earlier this year, a senior company executive told Reuters Petrobras was looking to buy interest in African oil fields to boost its reserves and was in talks with potential sellers, including Exxon, Shell, and TotalEnergies. Petrobras’s proven oil and gas reserves increased by 500 million barrels last year, from 10.9 billion barrels to 11.4 billion barrels.
Earlier this week, Petrobras submitted a declaration of interest for offshore oil acreage in Ivory Coast, including nine blocks in total in it. The declaration will grant the Brazilian major exclusive negotiations on the acquisition of the assets.
“The geographic location of Ivory Coast, on the African Atlantic coast, is of great interest to Petrobras,” Chambriard said in comments on the news, as quoted by Offshore Technology. “We have a lot of experience in this region, on this side of the Atlantic, where the Campos and Santos basins are located, and I believe that we can also achieve important results on the other side of the ocean.”
Separately, Petrobras sealed a preliminary cooperation deal with Angola’s Sonangol, focusing on joint offshore exploration, subsea engineering, and sustainable oil and gas production technologies.
Petrobras booked a virtually flat crude oil production for the first quarter of the year, at 2.77 million barrels daily, down by 0.2% on the first quarter of 2024. It was up by 5.4% sequentially, however, the Brazilian state energy major reported. Production of crude specifically registered a decline of 1%, to 2.21 million barrels daily. The company attributed the decline to natural depletion at some fields.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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