Petrobras negotiates Búzios costs agreement with Chinese partners

June 14, 2021
Petrobras has signed a co-participation agreement with Pré-sal Petróleo, CNODC, and CNOOC.

Offshore staff

RIO DE JANEIROPetrobras has signed a co-participation agreement with Pré-sal Petróleo (PPSA), CNODC, and CNOOC.

This will regulate the Transfer of Rights agreement and the production-sharing contract for the surplus of the Transfer of Rights for the giant deepwater Búzios field in the presalt Santos basin area.

Negotiations began after the bidding process on Nov. 6, 2019, under which Petrobras acquired 90% of the rights to explore and produce the surplus volume of the Transfer of Rights from Búzios with the two Chinese companies.

The trio and PPSA then drew up the field’s development plans, including production curve estimates, oil and gas price assumptions, and cost metrics, aligning the following shares:

The value of the total compensation due to the Transfer of Rights Agreement (100% Petrobras) for the PSC is $29.4 billion, which will be recovered by the contractors as cost oil.

As Petrobras has a 90% stake in the contract, the company will receive $2.94 billion in cash (equivalent to the 10% held by CNOOC and CNODC) in cash on the effective date of the agreement.  

The participation in the Búzios reservoir will then be 92.666% for Petrobras and 3.667% for each of the partners.

This arrangement remains subject to approval by Brazil’s National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP).

Participation and compensation estimates presented are based on the effective date of the agreement as of Sept. 1, 2021. Once the date has been confirmed and approval secured, adjustments will be made according to the accumulated production and investments made up to that point.

06/14/2021