Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 04 2021

LatAmOil BRAZIL LatAmOil

These figures include expected production from As of December 31, 2020 it had yielded a total of
Patola, additional output at Baúna as a result 132.7mn barrels of oil. (Output was averaging
of Patola’s development and the remaining 16,000 bpd as of July 2020, according to previous
reserves of the SPS-57 well, which was drilled in reports.)
2012, the Australian company stated. They were Since October 2019, crude transferred to the
“deterministically estimated from subsurface FPSO has been sold under an off-take and mar-
modelling and simulation studies,” it added. keting agreement with Shell Western Trading
The estimates are in alignment with Karoon’s and Supply, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell
own internal requirements. However, the firm (UK/Netherlands).
has said it will address the requirement before The BM-S-40 block lies within a shallow-wa-
the second quarter of 2021, when it is due to ter section of the southern Santos basin, one of
make a final investment decision (FID) on Brazil’s largest hydrocarbon provinces. It is
Patola. around 50 km away from Karoon’s Neon and
Baúna has been in production since 2011 and Goiá discoveries and 50 km from the company’s
in commercial production since February 2013. Clorita exploration area. ™

ARGENTINA
YPF in talks with creditors

on proposed securities swap

ARGENTINA’S national oil company (NOC)
YPF has reportedly begun negotiations with
several groups of bondholders on its recent pro-
posal for a securities swap.
Roger Horn, a corporate analyst in New York
for SMBA Nikko Securities, told Bloomberg ear-
lier this week that a number of YPF’s creditors
had formed consortia for the purpose of dis-
cussing the bond swap plan. He did not iden-
tify any of the participants but reported that the
NOC’s latest proposals reflected the requests
made by some of these consortia. YPF needs funds to develop Vaca Muerta fields (Photo: Rio Negro)
According to Ezequiel Fernandez, an analyst
for Balanz Capital Valores in Buenos Aires, this The proposed swap would allow YPF to delay
shift in response to debtholders’ preferences is $2.1bn worth of payouts until the end of 2022
evident in YPF’s offer to back some of the new and use the money to invest in the expansion of
securities that would be involved in the swap its upstream production base, including devel-
with shares in one of its subsidiaries, YPF Ener- opment projects in the vast Vaca Muerta shale
gia Electrica. This proposal is likely to attract formation. These investments, in turn, would
enough support from investors to enable the help YPF meet domestic demand for natural gas,
restructuring of the short-dated notes slated for which is expected to spike in mid-2021 as the
exchange, he said. Southern Hemisphere enters the heating season.
YPF informed creditors earlier this month More specifically, they would reduce the need
that it was looking to exchange $6.2bn worth for the NOC to spend its dwindling reserves of
of its bonds for securities with a later expiration foreign currency on imports of LNG.
date. It said it was ready to issue three new sets Several months ago, Argentina’s central bank
of bonds to replace seven outstanding issues refused to allow YPF to borrow all of the hard
of securities that are due to mature between currency it needed to pay holders of the dol-
2021 and 2047. One of the seven issues is due lar-denominated bond due in March. This move
to mature in March 2021, and market observers may have pushed the company into proposing
have expressed concern about YPF’s ability to the debt swap, Horn commented.
satisfy holders of these short-dated securities. “The sad thing is that YPF probably never
According to Fernandez, there is now less wanted to do this,” he said. “It’s the central bank
reason for concern. “Pledging the YPF Energia [that] told companies to bring dollars home on a
Electrica equity stake was a significant conces- promise that they’ll be able to buy dollars later to
sion,” he told Bloomberg. “You can see that YPF pay debt service, a promise which they’re reneg-
heard the bondholders on the relevant issues.” ing on.” ™

Week 04 28•January•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P11