Bloomberg reports that Brazilian oil production could top Russia’s by 2014, due in part to Petrobras’s massive offshore find earlier this year. The report comes amid a claim by Petrobras that it can develop the region and still turn a profit with oil prices below $50 a barrel, which must seem freakishly optimistic to the company’s Russian counterpart. Also, Reuters is reporting that Petrobras will raise more than $1 billion in the international capital market in December, suggesting a healthier economic outlook than in October, when the company borrowed $877 million from a state-owned Brazilian bank.
At least for now, in other words, the economic crisis apparently hasn’t affected the sale of Brazilian oil, which reportedly grew3.3 percent this year. In a biofuels seminar in Rio, Petrobras’s Supplyand Refining director, Paulo Roberto Costa, suggested plans were ontrack to invest some $112.4 billion into the company between now and2012.
“The details will only be disclosed after approval by the executiveboard and by the Board of Governors,” Costa said. “But it is important for Petrobrasto continue investing, we believe very much in our potential and aresure that the world is still going to need much oil.”
Meanwhile, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva remains adamant that the economic crisis won’t affect investment in Petrobras “not even one dollar.”
“The contracts we are going to do for the subsalt oil deposits,the contracts we are going to do for ships and drilling rigs, we aregoing to continue to do,” Lula said at a conference in Pernambuco state.
Seperately on Wednesday, Brazilian Mines and Energy Minister EdisonLobao said that plans to build refineries in several northeasternBrazilian states would also continue.
“A refinery isn’t built in oneyear. It’s built in five or six years, and this crisis isn’t going tolast more than a year,” Lobao said after a congressional event in Brasilia.
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