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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: energyplay who wrote (55197)	9/20/2009 5:42:59 AM
From: Gib Bogle	Respond to of 218108

Even Sarah Palin?

To: energyplay who wrote (55197)	9/20/2009 1:50:11 PM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 218108

Petrobras May Lift Its $174.4 Billion Investment Plan (Update2) Share \| Email \| Print \| A A A By Tara Patel and Helder Marinho Sept. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer, may increase its five-year investment plan because of development in the pre-salt region, the company’s finance chief said. “As we develop new fields, more money will be needed,” Chief Financial Officer Almir Barbassa said today in an interview in Paris, without providing details. Petrobras, as the company is known, is spending $100 million a day in capital expenditures, he said. “We see our business plan as challenging,” he said, referring to the Rio de Janeiro-based company’s plans to expand output from offshore pre-salt fields to 1.8 million barrels of oil a day by 2020 amid a local equipment and worker shortage. Petrobras plans to invest $174.4 billion in the 2009-2013 period, the world’s largest corporate program. The plan, which will be revised in January, includes about $29 billion for the development of offshore fields in the pre-salt deposits, below as much as 3,000 meters (9,840 feet) of water and 7,000 meters beneath the seabed. “We are not reducing capital expenditures on existing concessions to do what is needed in the pre-salt,” he said. “We are adding.” Executives of Petrobras met investors in Paris today to explain Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s plan to increase control over the energy industry through regulations being debated in Congress. Sole Operator The rules would allow the government to boost its stake in Petrobras and make the company the sole operator of pre-salt fields, which may more than double Brazil’s proven reserves in three years. Barbassa said the company will be able to operate all new fields and existing concessions outside of the pre-salt area. “We believe we have the capability to do what we need to do in other areas where we already have acquired the right to operate,” as well as develop pre-salt fields, he said. Petrobras executives are also trying to entice foreign oil equipment suppliers to set up manufacturing plants in Brazil to meet local requirements for drilling rigs, vessels, pipes, pumps and other supplies. “Our capacity to produce in Brazil is not enough,” he said. Economies of scale on large orders will offset the added costs early on of locally made supplies, he said. “The first pieces will cost more but the others will more than compensate,” he said. Petrobras started a process to award contracts for 28 drilling rigs this month to prepare for expansion in the off- shore fields, including the Tupi field, the largest discovery in the Americas since Mexico’s Cantarell in 1976. The initial tender is for seven drilling rigs worth as much as $5 billion to be built in Brazil at a new shipyard or modified at an existing one, Barbassa said. “It’s not a small deal,” he said. “We have to challenge suppliers and increase competition to get costs down.”