Brazil offers opportunities for foreign companies planning to operate in the country’s oil and gas sector. This message was conveyed today (May 6) in Houston, USA, by Paulo Sergio Rodrigues Alonso, an advisor to Petrobras’ CEO, at the event entitled “Oil & Gas in Brazil: Scenarios and Opportunities,” held by the Brazil-Texas Chamber of Commerce (Bratecc).

The executive, who is also the executive coordinator of the Program to Mobilize the National Oil and Gas Industry (Prominp), said that after 16 years in effect, Brazil’s Local Content Policy is mature.

In his talk “Marine Demands for 2020-2030: Local Content and Opportunities in a New Environment,” Alonso mentioned, among welcome initiatives for the sector, the collaboration between Brazilian and foreign manufacturers aimed at providing solutions for existing technological bottlenecks in domestic industry. “We want to encourage local content on a sustainable and competitive footing,“ he said.

The list of opportunities covers both manufacturers and service providers, which will be able to work in partnership with Brazilian suppliers. Alonso highlighted academia’s importance to innovation and the development of Brazilian industry and the oil sector. “We need to generate continued innovation, because it’s only through innovation that our industry will be competitive and world class compared with other competitors around the world,” he argued.

Alonso mentioned opportunities that will arise with regard to critical imported equipment and services required for the floating production, storage and offloading facilities (FPSOs, or platform-ships) that will operate between 2020 and 2030. “We need to develop new suppliers of offshore cranes, chemical injection units, vacuum sewer facilities, navigation systems, dynamic positioning solutions, propulsion systems, valves, pipes and connections, among other things,” he said.

The executive noted Petrobras’ need to make its investments with rigor and efficiency: “The company is hiring companies with proven experience in implementing projects (such as platforms), and it has been working with feasible local content requirements, seeking to relentlessly promote technological development and domestic engineering.”

E&P logistics strategy optimizes operations and costs

At the same event, Petrobras’ executive manager for exploration and production services, Cristina Pinho, gave a talk on “A new business model applied to Upstream Logistics.” The executive spoke about Petrobras Logística de E&P (PB-LOG), a company established to provide support services for Petrobras and its partners in the fields operated by the company.

Pinho explained that the creation in 2012 of PB-LOG, which is 100% owned by Petrobras, has made it possible to separate E&P operational services from support and logistics services. The infrastructure and resources that Petrobras already has, as well as its access to suppliers and service providers, gives a number of advantages to the logistics company, which will compete in the market to support the consortia operated by Petrobras.

The executive manager also presented Petrobras’ Logistics Operations Excellence Program, implemented along vessel routes in the Santos and Campos basins. This program has enabled Petrobras to optimize the number of fleet visits, increase the punctuality of deliveries by 20% and cut the vessel journey cycle time by 30%. The same program will be implemented for the company’s helicopter fleet, she said.

When presenting Petrobras’ logistics strategy, Pinho gave an overview of the volume of operations and resources managed by the company in its offshore operations in the Campos and Santos basins, where it has 144 support vessels that transport around 388,000 metric tons of cargo per month. To transport personnel, 9,000 flights are taken every month, using 101 helicopters, for 93,571 passengers. The company also has eight aerodromes to support its operations.

The Bratecc event was also attended by the director-general of the National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP), Magda Chambriard, and the president of the Brazilian Oil, Gas and Biofuels Institute (IBP), Jorge Camargo.

Opportunities in the Brazilian oil sector

On Monday (May 4), Paulo Alonso also presented business opportunities in the Brazilian oil sector in the seminar entitled “Providing goods and services for the oil industry in Brazil: opportunities for foreign suppliers in a new scenario,” as part of a parallel program of activities alongside the Offshore Technology Conference. During the event, the market development manager of Petrobras’ Materials area, Ronaldo Martins, talked about the scope for new goods and services suppliers in the country, as well as partnerships for technological and engineering solutions.