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By Julia Payne
LONDON, May 17 (Reuters) - The world's three largest oiltraders are competing to buy the African arm of Brazil'sPetrobras that owns stakes in two major Nigerianoffshore oil blocks, industry and banking sources with knowledgeof the matter said, after submitting bids earlier this month.
Last November, state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA,known as Petrobras, launched the sale of 100 percent ofPetrobras Oil & Gas BV, or Petrobras Africa, as part of theheavily-indebted company's plan to offload $21 billion in assetsthrough 2018 as it also faces a massive corruption scandal.
Petrobras holds half the shares in the company while 40percent are held by a subsidiary of Grupo BTG Pactual SA and 10percent by Helios Investment Partners.
Bankers have previously estimated the value of the Petrobrasventure to be about $2 billion.
The venture has stakes in two offshore blocks that containtwo producing fields, the major Agbami field in OML 127,operated by a local Chevron affiliate and the Akpo fieldin OML 130 operated by Total SA.
The sale has attracted the top trading firms which arealways on the hunt for long-term crude supplies. Mercuria and BPhad also its potential.In early May, three consortiums including the major tradingcompanies submitted bids to buy Petrobras Africa.
Vitol bid together with the oil upstream subsidiary of U.S.private equity firm Warburg Pincus called Delonex andCanadian-listed Africa Energy Corp, an oil and gasexploration firm that is part of Sweden's Lundin Group.
Glencore joined with Nigerian listed firm Seplatand French firm Maurel & Prom that ismajority-owned by the Indonesian government. Indonesia's stateoil firm Pertamina also backs Maurel & Prom and owns a 20percent stake in Seplat.
The third bidder was privately-held Famfa Oil together withRoyal Dutch Shell.
Famfa Oil is one of the concessionaires in the operator ofthe Agbami oil field along with Chevron, Statoil and Petrobras.Chevron holds the majority stake.
Vitol, Glencore, Shell, Africa Energy declined to comment.Maurel, Famfa and Seplat did not respond for requests forcomment.
Petrobras is expected to make a decision by the end of May.But the sources said that this could slide as there was a stilla possibility that the bids might be split between the two oilblock stakes.
Agbami produces about 240,000 barrels per day (bpd) whilethe Akpo field in OML 130 produces nearly 130,000 bpd with asecond field Egina due to come onstream in the same block laterthis year.(Additional reporting by Ron Bousso; editing by Jane Merriman)
