Sergio Machado News

Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA extended a leave of absence for the head of its tanker and pipeline unit, Transpetro, for 30 more days according to a filing on Friday. Transpetro President Sergio Machado stepped down temporarily on November 3 as police investigated a corruption scandal at the company that has delayed the release of audited earnings, implicated an array of major contractors and threatened to ensnare dozens of politicians. (Reporting by Brad Haynes and Alberto Alerigi Jr.; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Reuters)

Marintec South America Completes 10 Editions with the Brazilian Shipbuilding and Offshore Industry Pursuing Excellence and Global Competitiveness. Brazilian shipbuilding and offshore industry want to occupy a new space in the naval industry in the world map. The resumption of investment, driven by orders from Petrobras planned by 2020, created a promising scenario for the shipyards and the chain of services and supplies. The goal now is another: Creating a sustainable market in the long term and strengthen the global competitiveness of domestic firms. This is the balance at the tenth Navalshore - Marintec South America - Conference and Exhibition of Shipbuilding and Offshore 2013 event held between August 15-17 at the SulAmerica Exhibition Centre, in Rio de Janeiro (RJ).

MAN Diesel & Turbo representatives attended the delivery ceremony of the Suezmax tanker Zumbi dos Palmares. Powered by an MAN B&W 6S70ME-C type prime mover and three MAN 7L23/30H auxiliary engines, the vessel is the second ship built by Estaleiro Atlantico Sul (EAS) stemming from the Brazilian Government’s PROMEF shipbuilding program. The ceremony took place at the EAS shipyard in northeastern Brazil and was attended by the President of Brazil – Dilma Rouseff, President of Petrobras – Maria das Graças Silva Foster and President of Transpetro – Sergio Machado.

MAN Diesel & Turbo diesel engines power the tanker, the second PROMEF ship built by Estaleiro Atlantico Sul (EAS). Powered by an MAN B&W 6S70ME-C type prime mover and 3 × MAN 7L23/30H auxiliary engines, the delivery ceremony of the ‘Zumbi dos Palmares’ was attended by the President of Brazil – Dilma Rouseff, President of Petrobras – Maria das Graças Silva Foster, and President of Transpetro – Sergio Machado. “We are proud to participate in this new chapter of Brazilian shipbuilding history”…

Transpetro and Estaleiro Rio Tietê signed in late November, in Ribeirão Preto (SP), an agreement for the construction of 80 barges and 20 tugboats, which will make up convoys for the transportation of ethanol on the Tietê-Paraná Waterway. The new shipyard will be built in Araçatuba (SP).In August, Estaleiro Rio Tietê won the bid for the construction of the new waterway fleet to be operated by Transpetro. The barges and tugboats will cost $ 239.1 million and will begin to be delivered in the final quarter of 2011. The operation of the fleet is scheduled to begin in 2013, consistently with the term for the new terminals that will be established along the waterway. Each convoy will consist of four barges and one tugboat, with a capacity to transport 7.6 million liters.

The rise and fall of the Brazilian shipbuilding market is well-known, having plummeted from the top of the world list in the early 1980s to the bottom by 1999. Today, Brazil is storming back, an amazing revival of the nearly defunct shipbuilding industry driven by the sudden influx of orders from major offshore oil & gas players, namely Petrobras. Today the shipbuilding market in Brazil has in excess of 100 firm orders for ships in a variety of shapes and sizes, in addition to a large number of drill rigs and production unit orders. In addition, companies from around the globe are flocking to Brazil to set-up shop and engage in the industry’s renaissance.

According to Bloomberg, Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, may purchase tankers from Brazilian shipyards to export ethanol as the company moves to quadruple foreign sales of the biofuel. The ships would expand a plan to build 42 vessels for Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras's fleet of tankers as increased oil, gas and fuels production transforms Brazil from an energy importer into an energy exporter, said Sergio Machado, head of Transpetro, the company's transportation unit. Machado expects the first such ethanol tanker, which would likely be a 75,000 metric-ton, Panamax-class fuel tanker treated to resist the biofuel's corrosive effect on steel, to be built by 2011.