(Adds details on production, updates share prices)
By Gram Slattery, Marta Nogueira and Sabrina Valle
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 17 (Reuters) - France's TotalEnergies
, Royal Dutch Shell, Petrobras, Malaysia's
Petronas and Qatar Energy scooped up big offshore fields in
Brazil on Friday, raking in nearly $2 billion for the country's
cash-strapped government.
While TotalEnergies, Qatar Energy and Petronas won the
rights to develop the coveted Sepia field, Brazil's state-run
Petrobras, formally Petroleo Brasileiro SA, later
entered the consortium by exercising preference rights.
Petrobras, Total and Shell secured the nearby Atapu field.
The auction was widely seen as a test of Brazil's investment
climate and of large oil producers' willingness to keep spending
big on traditional assets. Officials, who had been keen to
attract major foreign players, deemed it a success, and analysts
said the offers agreed to were relatively rich.
The results suggested that some production assets can still
fetch strong interest, even as traditional E&P budgets at the
world's top oil firms are increasingly constrained amid a broad
shift toward green energy.
While the signing bonuses were fixed at 7.138 billion reais
for Sepia and 4.002 billion reais for Atapu, the percentage of
oil produced that will be handed over to the state, known as
'oil profit,' varied depending on the bidder. Oil profit for the
winning Atapu consortium came to 31.68%, while oil profit for
the winning Sepia bid came to 37.43%.
Bids "were high, which reduces returns," said Marcelo de
Assis, head of Latin America upstream research at Wood McKenzie.
"They were more aggressive than we expected."
Brazil-listed preferred shares in Petrobras were off 2.1% in
afternoon trade, underperforming the nation's benchmark Bovespa
equities index, which had fallen 0.7%. London-listed
shares in Shell fell 1.8% on Friday.
Brazil attempted to sell both fields in 2019, but neither
received https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-oil-auction-idUSKBN1XH1X3
offers, even from Petrobras. At the time, complex legal issues
and rich signing bonuses kept oil majors away https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-brazil-oil-petrobras-exxon-mobil-excl-idINKBN1XI2DC.
This time, bidding terms were considered more attractive https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL1N2SZ1VO,
several industry sources told Reuters, largely due to big cuts
in both signing bonuses and minimum profit oil.
The fields are considered attractive as Petrobras has
already discovered commercially recoverable oil in both blocks,
eliminating exploration risk.
Eleven companies signed up for the chance to bid on Friday:
Petrobras, Exxon Mobil Corp, Shell, Galp Energia SGPS SA
, Chevron Corp, Ecopetrol SA, Equinor
ASA, Enauta Participacoes SA, Petronas,
TotalEnergies and Qatar Energy.
Petrobras holds a 30% stake in the winning Sepia consortium,
TotalEnergies holds 28%, and Petronas and Qatar Energy hold 21%
each. At Atapu, Petrobras holds a 52.5% stake, Shell has a 25%
stake and TotalEnergies a 22.5% stake.
A second production unit is expected to be approved in the
near future to increase Sepia's overall capacity from 180,000
barrels per day (bpd) to more than 350,000 bpd, Qatar Energy CEO
Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi said in a statement.
Production at Sepia has plateaud at 160,000 barrels per day,
although a second production unit yet to be approved will raise
this to 350,000 bpd, TotalEnergies said in its own statement.
The two fields could boost Brazil's oil production by 12%
over the next decade and bring in almost $40 billion in
investment, its Energy Ministry said on Monday. Petrobras is set
to receive $6.2 billion for past investments in the two fields.
($1 = 5.68 reais)
(Reporting by Gram Slattery and Marta Nogueira in Rio de
Janeiro and Sabrina Valle in Houston; Editing by David Gregorio,
Diane Craft and Alexander Smith)
