Petrobras nears deal for Bahia Terra assets
Petrobras disclosed on March 22 that it has opened a second bidding round for its wholly-owned Bahia Terra onshore oil and gas cluster in the Reconcavo and Tucano basins.
A consortium formed by Brazil's Petroreconcavo and Eneva has submitted a binding offer. Their bid will now go to Petrobras's executive board for a decision on opening advanced negotiations.
Reuters said Petrobras also received a bid from 3R Petroleum Oleo e Gas, which owns several onshore assets in Brazil near Bahia, Ceara and Rio Grande do Norte, but this was not confirmed in the official announcement.
An earlier bid valuing Petrobras's assets north of $1.5bn fell through in October 2021 after Petrobras failed to agree terms with the two suitors – Aguila Energia e Particpacoes and Infra Construtora e Servicos.
Bahia Terra produced on average 13,500 barrels of oil and 660,000 m3/day on average in early 2021, according to media reports. The assets include gas and oil pipelines, collection and treatment stations and oil storage and transportation parks.
Both Petroreconcavo and Eneva have existing Brazilian upstream assets to complement Bahia Terra. Eneva has 36.5bn m3 of certified gas reserves across more than 60,000 km2 of acreage in the Parnaiba, Amazonas, Solimoes and Parana basins. Petroreconcavo is an independent onshore upstream player with 12 concessions in the Bahia onshore area. Its hydrocarbon output in Bahia amounted to 8,150 barrels of oil equivalent/day in February 2022.