Brazilian oil: still drawing punters
Brazil’s oil industry has not been the source of much good news recently but this week might just go down as one of its best yet.
On Monday, the country’s state-run giant Petrobras managed to raise $11bn in the biggest emerging markets bond issue ever. Then on Tuesday the country pulled in a record R$2.8bn ($1.4bn) in its first auction of licences for oil exploration blocks in five years. Continue reading »
Petrobras: saying Tchau to Argentina?
By David Gacs and Jude Webber
If rumours are true, it looks like Petrobras is about to get another top-up for its coffers.
Just two days after the Brazilian national oil company raised $11bn in the biggest emerging markets bond offering ever, market chatter is that Petrobras is poised to sell a stake in Petrobras Argentina, its Argentine subsidiary, for a princely sum of $900m. Continue reading »
Petrobras in $11bn mega bond offering [updated]
By Pan Kwan Yuk and Samantha Pearson
UPDATE: It’s official. Petrobras has succeeded in raising $11bn on Monday, making it the biggest emerging markets issue EVER.
Final pricing came in slightly lower than initial guidance thanks to strong demand from investors. Yields for the six-tranche issue ranged from 2.14 per cent for the three-year notes, to 5.76 per cent for the 30-year bonds. The total size of the issue can still increase as underwriters has a so-called “greenshoe option” to sell 5 per cent more of the bonds to Asia investors. See original BB post after the jump. Continue reading »
Petrobras: throwing Eike Batista a lifeline?
“This is business, not aid.”
So said Maria das Graças Foster, chief executive of Petrobras, as she announced that the state-controlled oil major is in talks with billionaire Eike Batista’s beleaguered EBX group about a potential tie-up. Continue reading »
Petrobras firesale: is Nigeria next?
Petrobras has made no secret of its wish to offload international assets. It has been trying to flog off $6bn of its Gulf of Mexico operations, although with little success to date, as part of a $14.5bn asset disposal plan that will also include refineries in Japan and the US.
Now Nigeria seems to be on the cards, according to a Reuters report, with plans to sell $5bn-worth of oil fields in the African country. Petrobras declined to comment. Continue reading »
Corporate watch: Triunfo Logística, riding Brazil’s oil wave
Do a Google search on Brazil’s oil industry and you’ll find most of the results are either related to the government or to state-controlled Petrobras. You’ll see gloomy tales about tough local content regulation and the pressures exerted on Petrobras by Brazil’s domestic price controls on petrol. Perhaps you’ll also read headlines about Chevron’s disastrous oil spills off the coast of Rio recently and the fines of $20bn it faces.
But away from the spotlight and the politics, there are hundreds of small service companies in the industry getting along just fine – if not more than fine. Continue reading »
Who’s afraid of working with Petrobras? Not Lukoil
For international companies, Brazil’s oil and gas industry can be challenging. The national oil company, Petrobras, has been appointed the sole operator by government decree of new fields in the country’s giant new offshore reserves, known as “pre-salt”. This means all operators have to work with Petrobras, exposing them to the risk of having the same government-controlled company as a partner. They also must source certain percentages of equipment locally, potentially making field development costly.
But that hasn’t stopped foreign companies from rushing in. Continue reading »
Ecopetrol: it’s not repo financing
It is one of the more peculiar corporate stories in Latin America.
How in the world can a company like Colombia’s Ecopetrol boast a bigger market capitalisation ($128.6bn as of Monday) than its Brazilian counterpart Petrobras ($126.1bn) which produces three times as much oil and gas?
One conspiracy theory that has been doing the rounds is that Ecopetrol’s shares are being used in repo trades – where brokers and investors use the stocks as collateral to borrow money and buy even more shares, artificially inflating the price. Continue reading »
Ecopetrol passes Petrobras – again
Photo; Bloomberg
Time for some smug smiles in Colombia, perhaps, and some gnashing of teeth in Brazil: Ecopetrol has once again surpassed Petrobras as the largest listed energy company in Latin America by market capitalisation, even though production at Petrobras is about three times bigger.
How can that be? Continue reading »
For Vale, the taxman cometh
If you think you’ve had a bad day, spare a thought for poor old Vale.
The Brazilian mining giant on Wednesday announced tax losses of nearly R$1bn ($483m) relating to cases in Brazil and Switzerland.
Early in the morning, Vale said it had settled a dispute with the Swiss authorities over what it called “differences in interpretation” of the federal tax breaks granted to Vale’s international business in 2006. While the company had already set aside $37m for the Swiss claim, it said it would now have to pay almost six times that amount – 212m Swiss francs ($232m). Continue reading »
Argentina’s YPF: Christmas shopping?
Shares in YPF, the nationalised Argentine oil and gas company, surged by more than 7 per cent in New York and by nearly 9 per cent in Buenos Aires on Friday morning, before backtracking a bit, after La Nación newspaper reported that Brazil’s Petrobras was selling out of Argentina and YPF could be the buyer. Continue reading »
Brics: risky businesses
What price a reputation? Earning a good one takes time. Losing it can take a moment. So some of the biggest companies based in Brazil, Russia, India and China may not be pleased to read a report issued this week by RepRisk, a consultancy that calls itself “the leading provider of business intelligence on environmental, social and governance (ESG) risks”. Continue reading »
Pemex/Petrobras: a tale of two state oil companies
By Claire Gordon
Shares of Petrobras fell sharply on Monday after the Brazilian state company reported a 12 per cent year-on-year decline in third-quarter net profit to $2.7bn.
The next day Pemex, the Mexican state oil company, reported a $1.9bn quarterly net profit. But progress was huge: a year earlier, Pemex reported a $6.2bn net loss. Continue reading »
Petrobras – drilling offshore for capital
When you have a corporate capital expenditure programme of $236.5bn, the world’s largest, you cannot stay out of the markets for long.
That’s why Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras, on Monday returned with a €2bn offer of bonds maturing in 2019 and 2023 and a £450m offer due in 2029, according to IFR. Continue reading »
Chevron spill: Petrobras to the rescue?
There’s nothing like an oil spill to show you who your real friends are.
On Wednesday Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run oil company, said it was working to help Chevron and Transocean fight an injunction that could ban the companies from operating in the country following last November’s oil spill. Continue reading »
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