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Petrobras

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9-204-043 REV: MARCH 10, 2004 MIHIR DESAI Drilling South: Petrobras Evaluates Pecom If you live in our neighborhood, you 've got to look at Argentina. It 's going through a major crisis today, but it is the second largest market in South America.1 — Francisco Gros, CEO, Petrobras João Nogueira Batista, Chief Financial Officer of the Brazilian firm Petrobras, reflected on Gros’s words as he prepared for a Board of Directors meeting in July 2002. The main item on the Board’s agenda was the proposed acquisition of an Argentinean firm, the Perez Companc Group, or Pecom.2 The acquisition would significantly increase Petrobras’s oil and gas production and add to its oil reserves. It would also provide the mainly Brazilian-based …show more content…

Petrobras’s official monopoly ended in January 2002, when the Brazilian government deregulated domestic prices for crude oil and oil products. Petrobras’s first discoveries were made onshore in the Northeast of Brazil in the 1950s and 1960s. In the mid 1980s, when the giant deepwater pools in the Campos Basin were discovered and developed, the profile of the company started to shift upstream toward exploration, development, and production. Upstream and Downstream Activities4 By 2001, almost 50 years after its inception, Petrobras had become a fully integrated oil and gas company. Petrobras was the seventh largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world based upon proven reserves, the largest Brazilian corporation, the third largest Latin American corporation, and the 185th largest global company, by 2001 consolidated revenues. In Brazil, Petrobras had a dominant position in both upstream and downstream activities. The company’s combined oil and gas production was 1,621 tbpd and it had proven reserves estimated at around 9.3 billion boe.5 (Exhibit 1 provides selected oil and gas data for Petrobras and other oil companies.) Most of the firm’s proven reserves were located in very deep waters (more than 400 meters) and Petrobras was the world’s pioneer in deep water oil exploration and production. Furthermore, with approximately

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