Marine Technology Reporter Blogs - sinopec

Petrobras, Brazil´s National operator hás recently disclosed new local and international O&G discoveries. The discoveries in Brazil are all in deepwater. In the Espírito Santo Basin the hydrocarbon accumulations were found in the Cretaceous reservoirs of a well known as Brigadeiro, down at 1,900 meters and located within the BM-ES-23 concession area in Block ES-M-525, 115 km off the coast of the State of Espírito Santo in southeast Brazil. This new deepwaterdiscovery at the very promising Espirito Santo Basin, was confirmed through wireline logging and fluid sampling, in t reservoirs located at around 4,200 meters.Petrobras is the operator of block BM-ES-23 (65%), which is also composed of Shell Brasil Petróleo (20%) and Inpex Petróleo Santos (15%).

It took a while to happen, but Petrobras and Chinese oil and petrochemical companies finally reached partnership agreements. Considering the scope of the Brazilian pre-salt and the expected growth of the Brazilian O&G market, these partnerships may become vital, as much more investments will be needed along the next 10 years. These partnerships in research and O&G exploration and production have been in negotiations for a long time but it took an official Brazilian delegation, headed by Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff, going to China, in order make it happen. It was a certainty in the market that this partnership would eventually come to be, it was just a matter of when it would happen and what it would encompass.

Chinese companies such as Sinopec, Sinochem, CNOOC, CSSC are actively pursuing partnerships worldwide, in Brazil this effort is particularly noticeable through recent partnerships with O&G players such as Petrobras, Statoil and Repsol.In the shipbuilding business news of some form of partnership between CSSC and local builders is expected for the near future as the local shipbuilding capabilities expand. In the O&G industry, Sinopec just recently announced its partnership agreement with Spanish operator Repsol. The agreement represented a capital increase of around 7 billion for Repsol Brasil, increasing Repsol Brasil´s total capital to around 17.8 billion. With this agreement 60% of Repsol Brasil still belongs to Repsol, while 40% now belongs to Sinopec.

China Petrochemical (Sinopec) and the Chinese national oil company (CNOOC) are holding separate negotiations with OGX Petroleo e Gás in order to acquire 20% of an OGX deepwater play at the Santos Basin. In general we can see a marked increase in Chinese involvement and investments in Brazil.These negotiations are the most recent effort of Chinese oil companies in Latin America. Normally Chinese oil investments are driven to Asia, the Middle East and Africa, regions that historically concentrate the majority of Chinese imports in energy sources and raw material. As recently as May of this year, Sinochem Group, China’s biggest chemicals trader, agreed yesterday to pay $3 billion to Statoil ASA for 40 percent of the Brazilian offshore Peregrino field.