Brazil’s Petrobras Seals Cooperation Deal With Chinese Oil Giant

Brazil’s state energy major Petrobras has inked a strategic cooperation deal with China’s state oil major CNOOC.

The deal, Reuters reports, citing a China-backed outlet, would focus on refining and chemical engineering, but also oilfield services and low-carbon energy projects.

The Chinese company, which almost exclusively focuses on overseas projects, already has a modest presence in Brazil, Reuters notes, with a minority stake in the Buzios field—one of the promising new developments in Brazil’s presalt offshore zone.

The Buzios field, operated by Petrobras, was discovered in 2010 and production began eight years later.

CNOOC recently reported an 11% decline in its net profit for the first half of the year as, like everyone else in the industry, it suffered the consequences of lower oil prices.

“In the first half of 2023, macroeconomy stayed complex and volatile, while international oil prices saw fluctuations in a downward trend,” CNOOC’s chairman Wang Dongjin said in a statement to shareholders.

At the same time, CNOOC boasted production growth both at home and overseas during the first half of the year, with daily net production reaching an all-time high. The company plans to book a record-high daily production for the full year as well, at 650 to 660 million barrels of oil equivalent daily.

Petrobras saw a much steeper drop in profits for the first half, at almost 33%. Yet it was the company with the third-highest profits for the period on a global scale, booking a net result of $13.17 billion, after only Aramco and Exxon, the Rio Times reported earlier this month.

Also earlier in August, media reported that the Brazilian state energy major was looking for opportunities to expand overseas in the upstream segment. The expansion would take the form of acquisitions, the chief financial officer of the company, Sergio Caetano Leite, told Bloomberg.

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