MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras will push back the deadline on binding offers for eight of its refineries, according to a securities filing on Friday, after plunging oil prices scrambled efforts to raise more than USD10 billion, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the firm is formally known, is likely to postpone the deadline by 30 to 60 days, said a person with direct knowledge of the matter, requesting anonymity because the timeline had not been announced yet.
The source said Petrobras decided to extend the deadline as extreme volatility in global oil prices demands the attention of senior executives from several bidders. Travel disruptions have also gotten in the way of their visits to Brazil.
Bidders for the refineries include U.S., Chinese and Middle Eastern investors, Reuters reported in January.
The company also announced on Friday it is asking its banks to draw USD8 billion from its revolving credit lines, as a way to strengthen liquidity amid the oil prices shock and coronavirus pandemic.
As MRC wrote earlier, the chief executive of Brazilian state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro said in December 2019 he wants to sell the company's stake in petrochemical company Braskem within 12 months.
We also remind that Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem's back burner for several years.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 215,390 tonnes in the first month of 2020, up by 23% year on year. Shipments of all grades of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) increased due to higher capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim. At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market were 127,240 tonnes in January 2020, up by 33% year on year. ZapSibNeftekhim's homopolymer PP accounted for the main increase in shipments.
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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