Petrobras studies to resume refining and petrochemicals in the former Comperj – 04/17/2023 – Market

Petrobras is considering resuming investments in refining and petrochemicals at Polo Gaslub, a project that was born as Comperj (Petrochemical Complex of Rio de Janeiro), located in Itaboraí, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro’s capital.

Target of Operation Lava Jato investigations, the project was dehydrated by previous administrations of the state-owned company: initially designed to house a refinery and a petrochemical complex, today it receives contributions only in a natural gas treatment unit.

The resumption of investments in the place is part of studies to expand the refining capacity in the country, with a focus on diesel produced from the mixture of petroleum with vegetable oils, also known as green diesel.

The studies for expanding the refining park were first disclosed by the newspaper “O Globo” and confirmed by the state-owned company in a statement to the market this Monday (17). The company emphasizes, however, that these are preliminary studies, which depend on an evaluation of internal governance.

The company had already set aside US$ 600 million in its latest strategic plan for the production of more sustainable fuels at the refineries in Cubatão (SP), Paulínia (SP), Duque de Caxias (RJ) and Paraná.

Now, it includes Polo Gaslub and the Betim (MG) and Pernambuco (Rnest) refineries, also a pivot of Lava Jato and which returned to Petrobras’ investment plan in 2021, after a failed sale attempt – the idea is to finally complete the unit, which operates at half capacity.

Investment in diesel with the addition of vegetable oils is part of the pillars of the company’s first strategic draft under the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), launched at the end of March.

Among the proposals that will define future investments is the “emphasis on adapting and improving the current refining park through efficiency gains and the combination of raw materials from a renewable matrix in the development of resilient industrial processes and sustainable products”.

Petrobras has not yet detailed, however, how much it will spend in this segment. The market expects that part of the budget will be announced later this month, as part of a strategy to direct part of the company’s dividends to investments.

In the former Comperj region, there are now works to complete the gas treatment unit that will receive production from the largest pre-salt fields through a gas pipeline system named Route 3.

The refinery works have been stopped since 2015 and the petrochemical complex never got off the ground. The project was launched with fanfare during the second Lula administration, in 2008, with operations expected to start in 2012 and expenditures of US$ 6.5 billion (about R$ 15 billion at the exchange rate at the time).

In 2021, Petrobras and the government of Rio de Janeiro launched a program to try to attract companies to the complex area, which has 43 thousand square kilometers, with an expectation of up to R$ 15 billion in investments, but there was no great progress either.

In this Monday’s communiqué, Petrobras says it is evaluating new plants dedicated to the production of diesel with 100% sustainable raw material, which it calls R100 diesel, at Rnest and Polo Gaslub. These facilities are known as biorefineries.

He also says that the Polo Gaslub “may have scope expansion to produce second generation petrochemical products”, admitting for the first time after the suspension of the project the possibility of returning to invest in petrochemical units in the project.

Petrobras does not provide further details, but the FUP (Federação Única dos Petroleiros) estimates that the new green diesel units at Rnest and Comperj may start operating in 2028. The company’s first unit to produce 100% renewable diesel should start to operate in 2026 at the Cubatão refinery.

The resumption of investments in refining is Lula’s campaign promise and represents a shift in relation to the company’s strategy in the Bolsonaro and Michel Temer governments, when the focus was to restrict operations in this segment to the Southeast region, selling units in the rest of the country.

The company, however, managed to sell only the refineries in Bahia and Amazonas and a shale production center in Paraná. Buyer of the Bahian refinery, the Arab fund Mubadala, announced an investment of R$ 12 billion in a green diesel plant at the unit.