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3R is one of the Brazilian independents that has attracted investors’ attention (Image: 3R Petroleum)
He is also the second person nominated to the firms are poised for significant output growth,
post this year, following José Mauro Ferreira and shares look attractive even assuming a sce-
Coelho, who lasted less than two months. nario of lower oil prices.”
Despite this turnover in the C-suite – and Pedro Medeiros, one of Atalaya Capital’s
despite Petrobras’ ongoing quarrel with Bra- founding partners, said that smaller Brazilian
zilian President Jair Bolsonaro over domestic companies had benefited from Petrobras’ deci-
petroleum product prices – the NOC does still sion to shed its smaller and onshore assets in
reap benefits from the ongoing upswing in the order to focus on large-scale projects in the off-
country’s crude oil production. However, rising shore pre-salt zone. Junior companies have been
output levels also reflect well on other Brazilian able to amass “remarkable” records with respect
operators. to improving drilling efficiency and production
These include smaller firms such as 3R Petro- at the fields sold off by the NOC, Medeiros said.
leum Oleo e Gas SA, Bloomberg said. It noted Some observers have been more cautious.
that Gerval Investimentos, the family-owned For example, Andre Laport, a partner at the Vin-
investment firm set up by the parties that collec- land hedge fund, told Bloomberg that his organ-
tively held a controlling share in the Gerdau SA isation was limiting the size of its investment
steelmaker, had recently increased its stake in 3R in 3R. He described the independent as “very
to about 12%, about double the previous level. attractive in the long term” but said Vinland still
Brazilian independents have also attracted had to contain risks.
attention from hedge funds such as Atalaya But other analysts, such as Amanda Bandeira,
Capital, Mar Asset Management, Vinland Capi- an upstream research associate at Wood Mac-
tal and XP Asset Management, the news agency kenzie’s office in Rio de Janeiro, stressed the
reported. It quoted Marcos Peixoto, a Sao Pau- “huge upside potential” of investment in Bra-
lo-based portfolio manager for XP Asset Man- zilian independents, stressing that these com-
agement, as saying that these companies were panies were able to deliver quick returns on
good prospects – and not just because of current their assets. “Petrobras had not been investing
conditions on global oil markets. in these fields, so small investments bring con-
“Brazilian oil juniors are good investment siderable and quick production increases,” she
alternatives,” Peixoto told Bloomberg. “These commented, according to Bloomberg. ™

Equinor restarts production at

Peregrino oilfield offshore Brazil

EQUINOR (Norway) reported earlier this week project outside Norway.
that it had resumed production at the Peregrino In a statement, the company said it had been
field offshore Brazil on July 16 after a hiatus of able to bring the field back online after complet-
more than two years. ing a series of significant investments in produc-
Peregrino is Equinor’s largest operated tion infrastructure.

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 29 21•July•2022