Page 11 - LatAmOil Week 06 2022

LatAmOil BRAZIL LatAmOil

Petrobras’ privatisation campaign also designed in Minas Gerais.
to cover the Presidente Getúlio Vargas Refinery Thus far, the NOC has only finalised the
(REPAR) in Paraná State, the Alberto Pasqua- RLAM sale, but it aims to conclude deals with
lini Refinery (REFAP) in Rio Grande do Sul, the the Forbes & Manhattan bank of Canada for
Isaac Sabbá Refinery (REMAN) in Amazonas, SIX and the Brazilian fuel distributor Atem for
the Shale Industrialization Unit (SIX) in Paraná, REMAN later this year. It may also sign sales
the Lubrificantes e Derivados de Petróleo do agreements for the REGAP and LUBNOR plants
Nordeste (LUBNOR) base oils plant in Ceará, in the first half of 2022, and for the remaining
the Abreu e Lima Refinery (RNEST) in Pernam- three plants after the presidential elections in
buco and the Gabriel Passos Refinery (REGAP) October. ™

Petrobras talks up northern frontier basins

BRAZIL’S national oil company (NOC) Petro-
bras is talking up its plans for exploring frontier
basins off the country’s northern coast that may
hold large amounts of crude oil and natural gas.
Joaquim Silva e Luna, the CEO of Petrobras,
said at a Credit Suisse event last week that the
basins in question – Barreirinhas, Foz do Ama-
zonas, Para-Maranhao and Potiguar, known
collectively as the equatorial margin – might
hold around 40% as much as the pre-salt zone,
which straddles the Santos and Campos basins
and may contain more than 16bn barrels of
oil. The NOC is optimistic about its chances of
finding large reserves in the northern frontier
basins, he stated.
“We may have some good surprises ahead The equatorial margin may hold large hydrocarbon reserves (Image: Spectrum
of us,” he was quoted as saying by Argus Media.
Luna did not say whether Petrobras intended The NOC is not the first oil firm to show
to focus its efforts on any specific licence area in interest in the equatorial margin. TotalEner-
the northern basins. He did report, though, that gies has also sought permission to drill in the
the company was gearing up to launch a new region but ran into difficulty after environmen-
exploration campaign in the equatorial margin tal groups expressed concern about the risks to
in the second half of this year. The NOC wants to coral reefs and wildlife in its licence areas. Argus
drill 14 exploration wells in the region, which is Media believes that state-owned Petrobras is less
thought to be geologically similar to the sections likely to encounter such roadblocks – and that
of the Guyana-Suriname basin where light sweet Luna’s statements may be a sign that IBAMA,
crude oil has been discovered, he said. the Brazilian federal environmental agency, is
Petrobras will allocate about $2bn of its ready to issue the necessary drilling permits.
$5.5bn budget for exploration during the 2022- As of press time, however, neither IBAMA
2026 period for work in the northern frontier nor the NOC had commented further on the
basins, he added. matter. ™

Karoon to buy carbon offsets for

Baúna project from Shell subsidiary

KAROON Energy (Australia) said on February In a statement, Karoon reported that its
8 that it had arranged to acquire carbon credits wholly owned subsidiary Karoon Petróleo e Gás
to offset future greenhouse gas (GHG) emis- had signed a long-term, fixed-price agreement
sions from its development operations at Baúna, with Shell Western Supply and Trading (SWST),
an offshore oilfield in Brazil’s Santos basin. an affiliate of Shell (UK).

Week 06 10•February•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11