MOSCOW (MRC) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA is delaying its exit from Argentina’s petrochemical business as it focuses on a graft case in Brazil, two people familiar with the process said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based producer is known, received a joint offer for its 34% stake in Cia. Mega SA from partners YPF and Dow Chemical, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.
Buenos Aires-based YPF owns 38% of Mega and Dow has 28%.
An expanding investigation into Brazilian contractors that allegedly bribed Petrobras officials is cutting off its access to debt markets, slowing signing of new contracts and has helped push down the stock by 63% since September.
Mega had 1.9 billion pesos (USD222 million) in sales last year.
Alejandro Di Lazzaro, a YPF spokesman, declined to comment when contacted by phone. Petrobras, which operates Mega, and Dow Chemical spokeswoman Rebecca Bentley didn’t immediately respond to e-mails and phone calls seeking comment.
The oil producer began marketing assets in Argentina -- including a refinery, petrochemical plants and oil and gas fields -- in March as part of a global divestment plan intended to focus on its Brazilian oil fields.
We remind that, as MRC wrote previously, Petrobras kept its five-year investment plan flat for the first time in years. The company's new investment plan is a relief to those investors who'd feared another increase. Petrobras has one of the largest investment budgets of any firm in the world at USD236.7 billion for the next five years, as it seeks to develop some of the biggest oil discoveries the world has found in decades. But its ambitions have weighed heavily on its share price in recent years, as production increases have failed to materialize and some projects have been mired by delays and cost overruns.
Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
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