Petrobras raises five-year investment plan to BRL 381 billion

Petrobras intends to invest US$ 68 billion (R$ 381 billion, at the current price) between 2022 and 2024. The investment plan released this Wednesday (24) maintains the focus on the pre-salt and, as anticipated by sheet, does not bring a forecast of investments in renewable energies.

The value announced by the company is 23.6% higher than the US$ 55 billion (R$ 308 billion) of the last plan, for the period between 2021 and 2025, which was prepared still under the strong impact of the beginning of the new coronavirus pandemic. Now, the planning is done in the midst of a recovery in oil prices.

Of the total planned amount, 84% will be spent on exploration and production of oil and natural gas. There are US$ 57 billion (R$ 320 billion), of which 67% will be destined to projects in the pre-salt, which the company defends to produce an oil with less emission of greenhouse gases.

“This allocation is in line with the company’s strategic focus, increasingly concentrating its resources on assets in deep and ultra-deep waters, where it has shown great competitive advantage over the years, producing better quality oil with lower emissions,” said the state-owned.

The forecast is that these investments will lead the company’s production to 3.2 million barrels of oil and gas per day in 2026, an increase of 18% compared to the target of 2.7 million barrels stipulated for 2022. In the third quarter of 2021, Petrobras produced 2.83 million barrels of oil and gas.

The production curve projected in the investment plan considers the entry of 15 new oil and gas production platforms between 2022 and 2026, informed the company in a statement to the market.

The plan foresees between US$15 billion and US$25 billion (R$84 billion to R$140 billion) in asset sales over the next five years, with the objective of “improving operating efficiency, return on capital and cash generation necessary to maintain debt at an adequate level”.

“Active management [do portfólio] allows Petrobras to focus on assets that have the potential to increase the expected return on the portfolio in a sustainable way,” said the company, without indicating which business it intends to sell in the period.

The company says it “continues to strengthen its initiatives related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) aspects, with a firm commitment to accelerate its decarbonization and to always act in an ethical and transparent manner, with safety in its operations and respect for people and the environment.”

Thus, it set aside US$ 1.8 billion (R$ 10 billion) for initiatives to decarbonize activities, such as technologies for separating CO² from oil and gas, methane detection systems and carbon reduction projects in refineries, among others.

“Most of these initiatives are related to the optimization of production and/or operational efficiency, with important consequences in the reduction of emissions”, he says. Reducing emissions is one of the goals for analyzing the performance of the company’s executives.

Among sustainability goals, Petrobras included in the plan the reduction of the carbon and methane intensity of its activities, reinjection of CO² into the wells, reduction of fresh water withdrawals and zero growth in waste generation.

The state-owned company has been criticized for not following competitors, mainly European, in efforts to diversify its activities, given the growing pressure to reduce production and consumption of fossil fuels.

In the document delivered to the CVM (Securities Commission) on Wednesday, the state-owned company confirms that it will not have a budget for this diversification, but says it has created a governance model to assess projects for diversifying operations in the future.

The objective, he says, is to analyze “possible new businesses that can reduce exposure and dependence on fossil sources and, at the same time, are profitable, ensuring the company’s sustainability in the long term”.

This year, the final COP26 resolution cited for the first time the need to reduce inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, which was seen as a harsh message to the oil and coal sectors.

Before the meeting in Glasgow, the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had already issued warnings about the need to reduce the production of fossil fuels.

“The adopted strategic model remains anchored on the premise of producing oil and gas compatible with society’s accelerated decarbonization scenarios, adopting the concept of double resilience: economic, resilient to low oil price scenarios, and environmental, with low carbon” , he stated.