Brazil’s Petrobras to acquire Exxon Mobil’s assets

Petrobras was the only one to make a purchase offer for Exxon’s assets in Brazil. But the US-headquartered company has not set a deadline for a response, Petrobras’ Director of Foreign Affairs Jorge Zelada told a press conference. Market analysts estimated that Petrobras’ offer would reach some $1 billion, but Zelada did not confirm the figure. While Petrobras waits for Exxon’s reply, it will launch negotiations to acquire the latter’s oil and gas assets in Chile and, after that, in Uruguay, said Zelada. He added, that there are other bidders for Exxon’s assets in Chile, and he confirmed that Petrobras did not make any offers for Exxon’s assets in Argentina.

On Monday’s reports of the discovery of a gigantic oil and gas reserve in the Santos Basin in southeastern Brazil, he said that if the company confirmed the existence of such a huge reserve, initially seen as one of the largest in the world, Petrobras would probably have to revise its policy to concentrate investments in the domestic production of oil and gas. But he added that it was not yet possible to estimate the size of the reserves found under the deep waters of the BMS-9 block, in the so-called “Sugar Loaf” field. (people.com.cn)