Brazil approves priority financing for Petrobras FPSOs

Brazil’s federal merchant marine fund (FMM) approved priority financing of 8.5bn reais (US$1.7bn) for Petrobras’ Sergipe-Alagoas deepwater FPSOs (SEAP I and II), a source familiar with the subject told BNamericas. 

The green light means that the state-run oil firm will be able to contract financing from FMM's financial agents, which include federal banks such as BNDES. 

For SEAP I, the FMM approved 4.9bn reais and for SEAP II, 3.6bn reais. 

The move marks an important milestone for the undertakings, which have been delayed in recent years. 

In March, Petrobras’ engineering director Carlos Travassos told a press conference that the oil giant was in talks with the FMM and private banks – some foreign – to improve financing conditions for the construction of FPSOs. 

And he confirmed that the decision to push back the deadline to June 14 for the delivery of commercial proposals to charter the SEAP units was mainly a result of the limitation on obtaining credit.

The two FPSOs will each have capacity to produce 120,000b/d and 10-12Mm3/d of gas, with minimum local content of 40% and 30%, respectively.

In addition to the production platforms, SEAP will have a 134km gas pipeline, 111km of which will be at sea and 23km on land.

The tenders to acquire the SEAP units were launched in April 2023, calling for 21-year contracts. 

A previous attempt to contract the units was called off in May 2022 after Petrobras disqualified Ocyan for including conditions that were not foreseen in the tender rules, as well as presenting a price outside the expected parameters.  

The first process called for contracting based on the BOT (build-operate-transfer) model, while the current tenders foresee a lease or charter system. 

The company's latest business plan, announced at the end of 2023, pushed back the start-up date of the two Sergipe deepwater FPSOs from 2027 to 2028.