Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 05 2020

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Petrobras sees reserves drop after divestments
BRAZIL’S state-owned oil and gas major Petro- bras has said that its proven reserves fell to 9.56bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) in 2019, down 0.48% from 9.606bn boe in the previous year.
e heavily indebted rm said the drop was mainly a result of divestments it made last year, according to a Reuters report. e news agency listed the sales of several elds in the Campos Basin – including the Pargo, Carapeba, Ver- melho and Maromba licence areas – as examples of these sell-o s.
Last December, Rio de Janeiro-based Petro- bras said it was planning to sell $20-30bn worth of assets, including eight Brazilian re neries, between 2020 and 2024. e rm has also indi- cated that it could add its Bolivian assets, its stake in petrochemical rm Braskem, various legacy deepwater oilfields and its remaining stake in fuel distribution rm BR Distribuidora.
It has also indicated that it will sell sections of Marlim, one of Brazil’s largest oil elds, as well as its majority stake in the smaller Papa-terra site.
According to the company’s CEO, Roberto Castello Branco, a piece of Marlim could bring in around $2-4bn. Likewise, Petrobras’ CFO Andrea Almeida has said that the sale of the company’s Braskem stake could fetch $2-3bn.
The major, which is one of the largest oil companies in the world, has estimated that the additional sell-o s and other cost-cutting meas- ures will boost its equity value by roughly 45% by 2021. e rm is struggling to pay down debt
and recover from the Lava Jato corruption scan- dal, using a strategy based on divesting non-core assets to focus on the deepwater pre-salt area.
Between 2020 and 2024 Petrobras is to con- centrate spending on the o shore pre-salt for- mation, with a special emphasis on its Buzios field. Buzios, formerly known as the Franco eld, lies within the Cessão Onerosa (Transfer of Rights) region of the Santos Basin. It covers an area of 416 square km and is situated approx- imately 200km o the coast of Rio de Janeiro, in water depths ranging from 1,600 to 2,100 metres.
e eld reached the stage of rst oil in April 2018. Last September, it became Brazil’s sec- ond-biggest source of oil and gas, with output reaching 327,828 barrels per day (bpd), accord- ing to data from the National Petroleum Agency (ANP). ™
Petrobras CFO Andrea Almeida (Photo: Jornal do Comercio)
Africa Oil uses BTG Pactual dividend to pay down POGBV loan
CANADA-BASED Africa Oil has started repay- ing the loan it took out to nance its acquisition of Petrobras Oil and Gas BV, now known as Prime Oil and Gas BV (POGBV).
In a statement, the company said it had received its first dividend payment from POGBV. e payment amounted to $62.5mn, or50%oftheentiresumdistributedbyPOGBV. This is in line with Africa Oil’s 50% stake in POGBV, it said.
All of the dividend funds will be used to
pay down the $250mn credit that BTG Pactual extended to help Africa Oil buy the POGBV stake, the statement said. “ e company will apply this amount and any future dividends in priority towards the repayment of its $250mn POGBV acquisition loan, in order to accelerate the repayment of the loan principal amount,” it explained.
Keith Hill, the CEO of Africa Oil, noted that his company had received the dividend shortly a er wrapping up its purchase of the stake.
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