INDUSTRY REVIEWOIL & GAS
A drilling rig off Rio de Janeiro.
operators will have a positive impact on the oil and gas market”, and also that more generally there might be an improvement in Brazil’s oil and gas sector project work market this year compared with 2016. “We did not see new projects being
signed in 2016 but for 2017 there are contracts to be awarded in the market for at least six floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels and the continuation of a few scopes of the Comperj facility [an integrated refinery and petrochemical facility being built by Petrobras at Itaborai in the State of Rio de Janeiro].” Similar optimism was expressed by José
Brazil opens pre-salt fields to global investors
International access to Brazil’s offshore fields will generate work, but Phil Hastings hears that the region’s players are divided over how long it will be before they see the benefits. Pedro Arruda, managing partner for
international companies is expected to generate new project logistics business opportunities. A few early signs of such developments
A
were already apparent by the end of 2016, with global energy major Shell announcing a related USD10 billion investment in Brazil over the next five years and a leading Brazilian project forwarder revealing plans to step up its focus on the oil sector.
Funding shortage Prior to the recent Congress move, Brazilian state-owned energy company Petrobras effectively had monopoly control of the national pre-salt fields. However, high debt levels and low oil prices have left the organisation unable to fund the capital expenditure required to lead the large-scale development of those resources. Brazilian logistics providers spoken to by HLPFI had mixed views about the prospects of the recent regulatory change triggering any international rush to invest heavily in such a capital-intensive sector as offshore deepwater while global oil prices remain low.
52 January/February 2017
decision by Brazil’s Congress last October to approve the opening up of the country’s ‘pre-salt’ offshore deepwater oilfields to large-scale investment by
Baggio Shipping & Chartering, whose activities for the Brazilian oil and gas industry include transporting heavy lift modules weighing over 1,000 tonnes and chartering vessels for offshore operations, suggested that “the influx of international
Luis Vidal, managing director of Sao Paulo based industrial project forwarder WV Logistics, which late last year decided to reopen a Rio de Janeiro branch, previously shut down in 2013, to support the development of a new partnership with “some big companies” in the oil and gas sector. “Our understanding is that the oil
business in Brazil will come back and the recent announcement by Shell is a very positive sign. The regulatory change means there is no longer an obligation for Petrobras to have a minimum 30 percent involvement in any oil and gas projects so there is now a window of opportunity for private companies to come in and decide where and how much they want to invest,” he stated.
Experience Vidal added that while WV Logistics does not have a long history in the oil and gas business, it does have experience in other major industrial sectors. “Our intention now is to offer the oil and gas industry that general industrial project expertise,” he said. Other Brazilian logistics providers,
though, are more cautious about the prospects of any immediate upturn in the Brazilian oil and gas project market. “Pre-salt reserves are expensive to drill
Our understanding is that the oil business in Brazil will come back and the recent announcement by Shell is a very positive sign. – José Luis Vidal, WV Logistics
and while world oil prices remain low, even if that sector is opened up to other companies, it will take a while before such operations become economically viable,” commented Cyro Paulo Flores, project business developer for Fox Brasil. “Overall, I think it will be 18 months before business in that sector starts to pick up.” More positively, though, he suggested the
current moves to clear up previous large- scale corruption in Petrobras will result in “a whole new Petrobras” in the next couple of years, “and in the medium to longer term that should be positive for the Brazilian oil and gas project market”.
HLPFI
www.heavyliftpfi.com
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