Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras said on Monday it has decided to halt some key asset sales after concluding a broad revision of divestment processes that were launched during the country's previous administration.
The oil giant said in a securities filing it will no longer sell the Urucu and Bahia-Terra clusters, as well as the Manati oilfield and Petrobras Operaciones, its subsidiary in Argentina.
The divestment processes had been opened by Petrobras' previous management under former President Jair Bolsonaro, as the company sought to sell non-core assets to focus on deepwater oil exploration and reduce its debt.
But after President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in January, some of those processes were halted and expected to be called off - including that of Bahia-Terra, which the company had already said it would not move forward with.
Petrobras said its new policy for the oil exploration and production segment is based on "maximizing portfolio value by focusing on profitable assets", as it justified the decision to call off the sales.
The policy also includes "replenishing reserves of oil and gas (including exploring new frontiers), increasing the supply of natural gas and promoting the decarbonization of operations," the firm added. The state-run company said it would move forward with the sale of its thermoelectric power plants Brasympe/Termocabo, Suape II and Araucaria. It holds about 20% of each of those assets.
(Reuters - Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Steven Grattan)