Marta Nogueira News

The Indian Navy on Friday rescued the crew of a merchant vessel after its attempted hijack in the Arabian Sea and said it had not found any pirates on board.An Indian Navy warship intercepted the Liberian-flagged MV Lila Norfolk bulk carrier less than a day after it had received a report that the vessel had been hijacked about 460 nautical miles off Somalia.About five to six armed people boarded the vessel on Thursday, according to a report received by the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency…

Brazilian oil workers union FUP said on Wednesday that intelligence staff at state-run Petrobras are aware of a potential plan to invade its Transpetro terminal located in the Maceio port in northeast Brazil.The threat comes as Brazil braces for more protests by supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro, after mobs rampaged through public buildings in the country's capital on Sunday.The union said "people identified with coup practices" were behind the plan, which also involves invading a distribution center owned by Vibra Energia in the same port, aiming to disrupt fuel supplies

Brazilian miners including Vale SA are resuming production in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais after being forced to halt some operations due to heavy rains that increased the risk of accidents and caused logistics disruptions.Vale said in a securities filing on Monday that the Brucutu and Mariana mines are gradually ramping up production as part of its Vitoria-Minas railway was cleared, allowing the iron ore to be moved.According to Vale, the stoppages affected production of about 1.5 million tonnes of iron ore.

Heavy rainfall in southeastern Brazil has prompted miners including Vale SA to suspend some operations, they said on Monday, after downpours caused deadly floods in the northeast and threatened to delay harvests in the midwest.Rainfall is expected to remain heavy this week in most of top mining state Minas Gerais, after runoff closed roads and railways.The rains may also have contributed to the dramatic collapse of a canyon rock face in the state on Saturday, killing 10 people visiting a waterfall on boats.In the northeastern state of Bahia…

Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petrobras received only one proposal, from Dutch SBM Offshore, in a bid to contract construction of the Mero 4 oil platform [FPSO] in the Santos Basin pre-salt, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters.Petrobras' business plan foresees Mero 4 entering operation in 2025 with a capacity to produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day.Petrobras and SBM declined to comment.One of the sources commented that it is the "first time in a long time that Petrobras has received only one proposal" in a bid…

Brazilian state-run oil firm Petrobras plans to restart operations in the coming days at two ships used in offshore oil production that suffered coronavirus outbreaks, an executive told journalists during a call on Friday.Petrobras Exploration and Production Director Carlos Alberto de Oliveira said operations at the Cidade de Santos should restart over the weekend, and operations at the Capixaba should restart within 10 days. Both are large ships known as FPSOs.Brazil's offshore oil industry has been hit hard by the novel coronavirus.

Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA said in a letter to the workers union on Thursday that it will idle six oil and gas platforms in five fields of the Campos basin due to the coronavirus epidemic.The company said the idling was aimed at reducing costs in the middle of the crisis hitting the oil industry, the letter seen by Reuters said.It comes at a time when Petrobras is trying to adapt to the new scenario of oil prices that have fallen about 50% this year due to the retreat in demand during the pandemic and the price war sparked by Russia and Saudi Arabia.The letter dated

Brazil has more than doubled the number of risky ship-to-ship oil transfers this year, but its monitoring of such offshore maneuvers is lax, to a point where a July 2017 collision between two tankers was not reported, according to a Reuters review of government and shipping records.Transfers are projected to keep rising as the country's deep-water discoveries have lured major companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc to recent offshore auctions. During these maneuvers, ships pull alongside one another and oil is transferred to a vessel via high-pressure hoses.

Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro SA will build its own oil platforms again from 2023, regardless of who wins the presidential election next month, an executive at the state-run oil company said.Petrobras' 2019-2023 business plan, set to be released in December, should include a resumption of platform construction thanks to the company's improving finances, Petrobras' director for production and technology development Hugo Repsold said."We will build platforms independently of who is president…

Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petrobras will start pumping pre-salt oil from four new platforms between October and December, the company's director for production and technology development Hugo Repsold said on Wednesday.Speaking to reporters at an oil industry event, he said Petrobras could study building its own platforms after 2022 and predicted the company would head towards sustainable growth of oil production in the next few years.The four new platforms in the Santos basin are the P-67 and P-69 in the Lula oil field, and the P-75 and P-76 in the Buzios fields.

Oil production by Brazilian state-led Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the Campos basin fell 1.4 percent in June over the previous month to 1.042 million barrels a day, its lowest level since 2001, as mature fields decline, according to company data.Output has dropped 15.8 percent in 12 months due to the ageing of fields off-shore from Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo that account for almost half of the crude pumped by Petrobras.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA's chief executive quit on Friday in a surprise move that wiped $12 billion off the state-controlled oil producer's market valuation, after Brazil's government responded to a national trucking strike by intervening in the company's fuel pricing policy.Pedro Parente, who in two years in the job had succeeded in slashing the scandal-plagued company's debt and restoring it to profitability, said in a resignation letter to President Michel Temer it was clear after the last week's turmoil that new talks would be needed on pricing policy."Given this situation…

Chevron Corp is considering taking part in an oil auction next month in Brazil as part of a consortium of companies, Brazilian oil regulator ANP said on Tuesday on its website. The auction, slated for March 29, will offer 70 blocks in the offshore Ceará, Potiguar, Sergipe-Alagoas, Campos and Santos basins and on-shore basins of Parnaíba and Paraná. The deadline to register for the auction is Wednesday. Chevron did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Chevron did not bid in an October auction that opened Brazil's offshore pre-salt play to foreign operators and was dominated by Royal Dutch Shell Plc. However, Chevron is seeking to ramp up its production in Brazil.

Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro said on Tuesday a fire at a platform in the Santos Basin was contained and did not cause injuries or environmental damage.   Production there remains halted until safety tests can be completed, the company said. The fire was discovered early on Tuesday on a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit in the Lula Field. The unit is operated by Petrobras in consortium with Royal Dutch Shell and Petrogal .   Reporting by Marta Nogueira

A fire on a platform belonging to Brazilian state oil giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA briefly halted oil and gas production late on Sunday, the company said, adding that there had been no injuries or damage.   The fire occurred in the Marlim field around 10:30 p.m. local time on Sunday and was put out four minutes later. Petrobras said on Monday that the accident may have been caused by a leak and would be investigated.   An explosion on Friday on the NS-32 drillship, operated by Odebrecht Oil and Gas for Petrobas and also located in the Marlim field, killed three workers. (Reporting by Marta Nogueira; Editing by Paul Simao)

Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA on Friday reported an explosion on the NS 32 drill ship, which is operated by Odebrecht Óleo e Gás, a unit of Odebrecht SA, according to a statement. The explosion wounded four people, three of them with burns and one with mild injuries, according to the statement. There was no subsequent fire after the blast in the Marlim field, Campos basin, and the drill ship is in safe condition, said Petrobras, adding it will investigate the causes of the accident.   (Reporting by Marta Nogueira; Writing by Ana Mano)

Brazilian government-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA expects higher oil exports this year than initial projections, Guilherme França, executive manager of trade and marketing, said Wednesday. Petrobras expects oil exports to reach 742,000 bpd by 2021 as the company advances development of its pre-salt oil reserves, which are capable of producing lighter varieties which are demanded internationally, França said. In March, França told Reuters in an interview that the company's oil exports would reach 450,000 bpd this year. That estimate has now been revised to 503,000 bpd, according to the executive. China is the company's main client, accounting for 56 percent of Petrobras's exports in the first quarter.

Brazil may allow companies besides Petrobras to bid for the right to produce extra oil from areas it sold to the state-led oil company in 2010, the head of the exploration and production policy at the energy ministry, Jose Botelho, said on Wednesday.   Botelho also said the government may allow Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, to pay with oil for adjustments in the price of the maximum 5 billion barrels of oil and equivalent natural gas it is allowed to produce in the areas.     (Reporting by Marta Nogueira, writing by Jeb Blount; Editing by Daniel Flynn)

A Brazilian federal court on Thursday ordered the suspension of activities at Vale SA's Port of Tubarão because of pollution concerns, halting the world's largest iron ore exporter's ability to ship more than a third of its output. The ruling by the court in Vitoria was made as part of a police investigation at the giant man-made port as Vale comes under increasing pressure over its environmental record in Brazil after a dam burst at a mine run by its Samarco joint venture in October, killing at least 17 people.

Brazilian prosecutors on Thursday charged 12 people with a bribery scheme involving Dutch firm SBM Offshore NV, the world's top leaser of oil production ships, and state oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro SA . Police said they had four arrest orders as part of the scheme, dubbed "Operation Black Blood," though two of them involved suspects already in jail in the southern city of Curitiba, the epicenter of a broader investigation into price fixing and bribery on Petrobras contracts with engineering firms. Former Petrobras executives Pedro Barusco, Jorge Zelada and Renato Duque were charged with corruption along with former SBM sales agents Julio Faerman and Luis Eduardo Campos Barbosa da Silva, according to a statement from federal prosecutors.

Brazil's state-led oil company Petrobras was forced to stop output at its P-56 offshore oil production ship on Wednesday in the Marlim Sul field after an explosion in an electrical panel started a fire and injured two workers, union officials said. The explosion happened Wednesday morning causing first and second-degree burns to the workers's hands, Brazil's national petroleum workers federation, FUP, said in a statement issued on Thursday. Production of oil and gas on the platform was stopped until 2 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) on Wednesday, the union said. It did not say how much output was affected. Petrobras, as the company is known, confirmed the explosion in an emailed statement on Thursday.

Brazil state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA stopped production on Sunday from its P-40 platform in the offshore Marlim Sul field after a gas leak on the vessel, an oil workers' union said on its website on Monday, citing worker reports. The P-40, a semi-submersible production platform, was producing about 45,915 barrels (7,300 cubic meters) of oil and 800,000 cubic meters of natural gas a day when it was shut down, the union said. The P-40 is at the hub of a network of five platforms in Marlim Sul and at the center of oil and gas pipelines that interlink undersea natural gas pipelines into a single export line to the coast. It is also interlinked to a pipeline system that exports oil from the neighboring Marlim field.

Brazil's state-led oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA is working hard to meet its production targets, the company's head of exploration and production, Solange Guedes, said on Monday in a telephone interview.   Guedes said the company's floating, production, storage and offloading ship (FPSO) named Cidade de Saquarema could begin operations in the Lula Central field this month and that she expects that Cidade de Caraguatatuba FPSO in the Lapa field to start operations in August.     (Reporting by Marta Nogueira; Writing by Jeb Blount)