Ainda em construção, em breve comentario das questões
TEXT I
Deepwater Oil Finds Spur NYK to Invest in New Vessels
by Mari Iwata
A raft of giant oil strikes in global deepwaters is
prompting Japanese shipping company NIPPON
YUSEN KABUSHIKI KAISHA (NYK Line) to invest more
in floating production vessels that it can offer for lease,
(5) a senior executive said. NYK Line says Petroleo
Brasileiro SA (PBR) will be its biggest customer in the
near term, as Brazil’s state-owned oil company targets
first production from large oil finds in the subsalt region.
Good news flowing from drilling campaigns in
(10)Brazil’s deep water continued Tuesday when Petrobras
said its Guara prospect in the Santos Basin holds
between 1.1 billion and 2 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Other big discoveries in the area include Tupi, which
was the Western Hemisphere’s largest discovery in more
(15)than 30 years. The oil lies under more than 2,000 meters
of water and a further 5,000 meters under sand, rock
and a shifting layer of salt.
Fewer Rivals
In June, NYK and three Japanese partners
(20)invested in Etesco Drilling Services LLC, which will lease
drill ships to Petrobras. A drill ship is already on order
and due for delivery in January 2012. It will be leased to
Petrobras for a maximum 20 years for drilling in Brazil’s
subsalt region.
(25) Hitoshi Nagasawa, managing officer of NYK Line,
said NYK isn’t involved in operating the drill ship in this
project, and is merely an investor. “However, we’ll learn
from our experience partnering companies, as our
ultimate goal is to operate (floating vessels) on our own,”
(30) he said.
NYK is one of Japan’s two major crude oil and
liquefied natural gas carrier companies, and has a track
record in loading and offloading these products. It is also
joint operator of a drilling vessel owned by the Japanese
government. NYK aims to make operating and leasing
floating vessels the third pillar of its business after LNG
shipping and very large crude carriers, or VLCCs.
At present, Petrobras’s ambitious drilling plans in
deepwater will ensure the Brazilian company remains
(40) its largest customer in the near term, Nagasawa said.
But the company is studying several more projects
involving floating vessels, said Nagasawa. He declined
to give specifics, but said: “We will partner with and invest
in other companies if we think the project is good. But
(45) we won’t do a project alone, because the investment is
too large for one company.”
NYK is also seeking other projects than drill ships.
These include floating production, storage and offloading
vessels, or FPSOs, floating storage and offloading
(50) vessels, or FSOs, and floating storage and regasification
units, or FSRUs.
NYK posted a net profit of Y56 billion for the fiscal
year ended March 2009, roughly down by half from a
year earlier. The earnings decline was due in part to
(55) weakening demand for shipping in the second half and
higher costs due to a strong yen.
The container shipping sector was among the
most attractive to new entrants until the global economy
started to turn down in fall 2008, with the intensifying
(60) competition contributing to weaker margins. But the
business of leasing and operating floating vessels for
use in deep-water areas has more barriers to entry
because it requires deeper technological knowledge and
higher investment, Nagasawa said.
slightly adapted from: (TOKYO) Dow Jones Newswires Sept. 10, 2009
URL: http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=80199, retrieved
on 22 December 2009.
...........................................................................................
TEXT II
The next oil giant?
Mar 19th 2009
From the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire
Financing hurdles
At the time of the Tupi discovery, oil prices were
close to US$100/b, but since then they have fallen to
around US$40/b. Weak prospects for a significant pick
(5) up in the medium term have raised questions about
whether investors will see the project as financially viable.
The drying up of international financing,
significantly lower oil prices and the technological and
geological challenges related to the development of the
(10) new oil finds make long-term cost calculations difficult.
Because of this, Petrobras decided to delay the
announcement of its five-year strategic plan by four
months. It was finally made public in February 2008
and included very ambitious financial goals. The revised
(15 ) plan for 2009-13 is based on an average oil price of
US$42/b and calls for investments of around
US$174.4bn, a 55% increase from the US$112.4bn
stated in its 2008-12 investment plan.
Petrobras has gone some way towards securing
(20) financing for this year’s outlays. The company has raised
US$10.5bn of the US$28.6bn it needs. Of the remaining
US$18.1bn, it is set to receive US$11.9bn from the Banco
Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social
(BNDES, Brazil’s national development bank) in the form
(25 ) of a 30-year US$11.9bn loan, with an additional US$5bn
bridge loan expected from a consortium of international
banks. Petrobras would need to raise a further US$10bn
to cover its investments in 2010.
Growing difficulties in accessing international
(30) capital markets could scupper these plans or—at the
very least—sharply raise the cost of borrowing. The brief
easing of credit conditions in January allowed Petrobras
to issue a 10-year, US$1.5bn bond on the eurobond
market. But low risk appetite on the part of foreign
(35) investors, recent currency-derivatives losses and
continued uncertainty regarding the value of the Real
mean that large Brazilian companies are increasingly
likely to rely on local banks for credit at high premium
spreads.
(40) What role for private capital?
While the role of the state oil company is not in
question, the level and manner of participation by the
private sector is not as clear. Brazil opened its
hydrocarbons sector to private investors at the end of
(45) the 1990s. Since then, it has held annual bidding rounds
that have become a model of transparency and have
attracted large numbers of private participants.
However, Brazil’s new oil and gas potential has
raised doubts about the extent of that openness in the
(50) future, as the government debates the preferred degree
of private participation. Following the Tupi discovery, the
government removed 41 deepwater blocks in the
sub-salt region from the ninth bidding round for the first
time since it started holding international rounds in 1998.
(55) In 2008 Brasília again withheld offshore blocks from the
10th bidding round. Seven companies currently hold
concessions for the development of the sub-salt:
Petrobras, BG, Galp, Repsol, Shell, Exxon and Amerada
Hess.
(60)A specially created government task force is
studying possible changes to the concession laws that
would give Petrobras the upper hand in the development
of the Tupi area. The task force is considering options
such as raising taxes and royalties on private companies
(65) producing in the new areas. Under current concession
contracts, private operators sell the oil they produce in
exchange for a relatively low government take of between
5% and 10%. They also pay a special participation tax
of 10-40% of revenue on large fields, depending on
(70) volume, location, depth and age; this level could also
be raised. A more dramatic approach under
consideration is to turn concession contracts into
production-sharing agreements with Petrobras. This
would mean that private companies would have to share
(75) their production with the government after recovering
costs.
Any changes to the current contractual
agreements would need congressional approval. But the
final decision will be in the hands of the president, Luiz
(80) Inácio Lula da Silva, based on the suggestions made by
the task force. Whichever line he takes will set the stage
for hydrocarbons developments in a future oil-rich Brazil
beyond the end of his presidential term in 2010. The
government hopes that by engaging in a debate early
(86) on in the development of the south-eastern oil reserves,
it will pre-empt a possible shift to resource nationalism.
THE ECONOMIST
http://www.economist.com/
displaystory.cfm?story_id=13348824&source=login_payBarrier
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GABARITO
31 - D
32 - E
33 - D
34 - B
35 - A
36 - C
37 - B
38 - E
39 - A
40 - B
41 - C
42 - D
43 - D
44 - C
45 - E
46 - B
47 - B
48 - C
49 - A
50 - D
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