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Petrobras begins accepting

bids for Bahia LNG lease

PROJECTS & BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro- two international firms that specialise in LNG –
COMPANIES bras has begun accepting bids for the right to Excelerate Energy (US) and Golar Power Latam,
lease Bahia LNG, an underutilised gas import a subsidiary of Bermuda-registered Golar LNG.
terminal in the north-eastern part of the country. Additionally, it noted that Petrobras would
Petrobras said in a statement that it was for- accept offers from Compass Gas and Energy,
mally launching the bidding process and was a new Brazilian gas transport and distribution
ready to accept offers from companies that had company set up by the Cosan industrial group,
pre-qualified to participate. The deadline for and two Brazilian gas distributors, Bahiagas and
submitting proposals is September 30, and the Naturgy.
NOC has said it will offer the lease to the com- Petrobras is auctioning off a lease to the facil-
pany that makes the highest bid. ity within the framework of its plan to divest its
The winner of the auction will have the right gas transport and distribution assets and to allow
to negotiate a leasing contract for the Bahia third parties to access gas infrastructure. It drew The winner of
LNG terminal, which is capable of importing up the outlines of this plan last year, under an
and regasifying the equivalent of 20mn cubic agreement with the Brazilian government’s anti- the auction will
metres per day of LNG. The contract will also trust agency, known as Cade.
cover a 45-km pipeline that runs from terminal Bahia LNG is one of three LNG regasifica- have the right
facilities in the port of Bahia to exit points in São tion terminals that Petrobras has built along the
Francisco do Conde and São Sebastião do Passé, coast of Brazil. Two of these facilities – Bahia and to negotiate a
but it will not include access to the Excelerate Pecem – are currently operating below design leasing contract
Experience, a floating storage and regasification capacity, and the third terminal – the Guanabara
unit (FSRU) that Petrobras has installed at the terminal, which is in Rio de Janeiro – has been for the Bahia LNG
port. out of service since 2018.
The terminal has been operating below Over the last year, however, Petrobras has terminal.
capacity for some time. According to data from allowed private investors launch their own LNG
Brazil’s Mines and Energy Ministry, it regasified schemes. For example, UK-based Centrica and
the equivalent of 4.34 mcm per day of natural gas its local partner Centrais Elétricas de Sergipe
in the first four months of 2020. (CELSE) commissioned a new LNG import
Last month, Argus Media reported that terminal in Sergipe in March 2020 and are now
Petrobras had authorised nine entities to par- using Golar LNG’s Golar Nanook FSRU to
ticipate in the bidding process. It said the list of import gas.
pre-qualified firms included four vertically inte- Meanwhile, Gas Natural Açu (GNA) recently
grated international oil companies (IOCs) – BP took delivery of another FSRU, the BW Magna,
(UK), Repsol (Spain), Royal Dutch Shell (UK/ off the coast of Rio de Janeiro State. It hopes to
Netherlands) and Total (France) – as well as bring this facility on stream in early 2021.™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 31 07•August•2020