OpeOluwani Akintayo
26 September 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Brazil’s national oil company, Petrobras is currently in a $6.22 debt mess.
The company, currently is unable to pay back the loan due to low oil prices, prompting its creditors to agree on crude swap to reduce the debt burden.
The debt will be settled through bonds that are due between 2019 and 2021 for long-term securities.
Petrobras will be swapping $2.285 billion of crude oil debt into 5.299 percent bonds due in 2025 and another $3.935 billion into 5.999 percent securities maturing in 2028.
The state-owned oil company had earlier put up 57 major state infrastructure assets for privatisation to raise cash, planning to have sold some if not all of its 51-percent stake in Electrobras by mid-2018.
As far back as 2013, Petrobras commenced the sale of its stakes in the Nigerian oil fields to become self-sufficient in energy, and to raise cash for domestic projects, including to invest in exploration activities in its deep sea region offshore Brazil also known as pre-salt thought to contain dozens of billions of barrels of high quality oil.
The sale of the assets handled by Standard Chartered Bank, was said to have fetched the country up to $5 billion.
The company sold its 8 percent stake in the Agbami block operated by Chevron, including its 20 percent share of offshore Akpo project operated by Total.
Petrobras began operations in Nigeria’s deep water offshore off the coast of Nigeria’s Niger Delta in 1998.
According to information, Brazil plans to raise more cash through new foreign direct investments.
Currently, as many as 17 companies have registered to bid in two rounds of exploration license awards in the country’s pre-salt layer this October.
Oils extracted from the pre-salt offshore wells is as low as $8 per barrel, a very attractive figure for foreign investors.
