Brazilian oil giant Petrobras is considering a hike in its investment plan but has left its five-year production target unchanged.
The proposed $111bn plan, which covers 2025 through 2028, would lift investments by 8.8% compared with its last strategic plan, which called for $102bn in investments between 2024 and 2028.
The plan, which was discussed by its executive board last week, projects production of 3.2m barrels of oil equivalent per day — unchanged from the last business plan, approved in November 2023.
The company’s total production reached 2.44m barrels per day in 2023.
Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras plans to spend $77bn on exploration and production, as well as $20bn on refining, transportation, commercialisation, petrochemicals and fertilisers.
It did not provide full details of the plan, which will go before the board of directors on Thursday.
As TradeWinds reported last week, among Petrobras’ upcoming spending is an effort to charter at least four suezmax shuttle tankers.
The commercial exercise has drawn a who’s who of international shipping companies competing to provide the 158,000-dwt vessels, which will have DP2 dynamic positioning capabilities.
The government-controlled company’s oil export growth expectations are among South American bright spots in global crude markets.
Tanker market experts have been looking to crude export growth from South America, with Brazil’s gains joined by those of Guyana, Argentina and Suriname, as a source of volume growth amid challenges for the continent’s refining sector.
By the third quarter of this year, Petrobras had already lifted total oil and gas production to 2.689m boepd.
And it said in its latest production report that the start-up of a new floating production unit in October will lift fourth-quarter output even higher.
The company’s largest foreign market is China, which made up for 41% of total exports in the third quarter. Europe took in 32% of total Petrobras exports.
