Shell plans to invest as much as US$2 billion annually in its Brazilian operations by 2025, Shell's chief executive officer Ben van Beurden told Brazilian business daily Valor Economico in an exclusive interview published on Thursday.
Shell, one of the most active foreign players in the Brazilian oil and gas sector, may even increase that amount in order to seize acquisition opportunities in three oil and gas auctions in the Latin American country.
Shell will not focus its operations and investments only in the oil sector, and will pursue opportunities in natural gas, biofuels, and solar energy, van Beurden told Valor Economico. The supermajor, however, will not be investing in refineries in Brazil, he noted.
Shell has been one of the most active foreign companies in many recent auctions that Brazil has held for its coveted offshore pre-salt layer. Back in 2017, a senior executive at Shell said that the company is confident that it can produce oil from Brazil's promising prolific pre-salt layer for less than $40 per barrel.
At an auction in September 2018, Shell, in a consortium with Chevron, won a 35-year production sharing contract for the Saturno pre-salt block located in the Santos Basin off the coast of Brazil. With the addition of the Saturno block, which Shell won in Brazil's Fifth Pre-Salt Bid Round, the Anglo-Dutch major boosted its total net acreage offshore Brazil to around 2.7 million acres.
"We are pleased to add another material, operated exploration position to our leading portfolio in one of the world's most prolific deep-water areas" Andy Brown, Upstream Director, Royal Dutch Shell, said last September.
Shell is also a partner pf Brazil's state oil firm Petrobras in many deepwater projects offshore Brazil. Shell is a strategic partner of Petrobras in the pre-salt layer, holding minority interests in the Libra and Lula fields and in other areas such as Sapinhoá, Lapa, and Iara, all of which are located in the Santos Basin.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More