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Market watchers had been expecting Petrobras to push output levels up higher, in line with e orts to ramp up development work at o shore elds that lie under thick layers of salt.
So far, the results of these campaigns have been disappointing. Over the last year, Petro- bras has launched seven new platforms at three
offshore fields – two pre-salt contract areas known as Buzios and Lula and one post-salt site known as Tartaruga Verde. Nevertheless, yields from these new platforms have not been high enough to compensate for lower output at some of the company’s older and more mature elds and for the sell-o of certain assets.
Petrobras to lease rig from company targeted in Operation Cash Wash
PETROBRAS, the national oil company (NOC) of Brazil, has arranged to lease a drilling rig from Ocyan, a local company formerly known as Odebrecht Oleo e Gas, for two years. e deal could stir up controversy, given that both Petro- bras and Ocyan’s parent company Odebrecht have come under harsh scrutiny in Operation Cash Wash, an ongoing investigation of corrup- tion in Brazil.
Roberto Simoes, the CEO of Ocyan, told Reuters about the deal in an interview last week. He said that Petrobras had awarded contracts to his company and two others in a recent ten- der for six rig leases. ( e other ve leases were divided between Petroserv, with two, and Con- stellation Oil Services Holding, with three, he said.)
Ocyan and the NOC have not worked together formally since the eruption of the corruption scandal that prompted Operation Cash Wash. Indeed, they were barred from signing any new contracts with each other until mid-2018.
At that time, Petrobras said it was ready to resume co-operation on a conditional basis, provided that the Odebrecht subsidiary could
improve its compliance programmes. Even so, it has taken nearly a year for the companies to reach the point of signing a new agreement.
For his part, Simoes said he saw the deal with Petrobras as a new beginning for Ocyan. e contract is “enormously symbolic,” because it will show that the parties are taking a more transparent approach, he commented.
Drillship for sale
In related news, Petrobras is reportedly gear- ing up to sell the Vitoria 10000 drillship, mark- ing its rst move to dispose of deepwater drilling equipment.
The company indicated last week that it intended to unload the vessel via an interna- tional electronic tender on September 18. It began allowing potential bidders to visit the ship on July 24 and will continue to do so until ve business days before the auction takes place.
The Vitoria 10000 is a sixth-generation drillship built by the South Korean conglom- erate Samsung. It was completed in 2010 and sold to Schahin, now known as BASE, but was transferred to Petrobras in 2011. e vessel is currently warm-stacked offshore Brazil near Badejo, a eld in the Campos Basin.
Grupo Schahin
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 30 31•July•2019
