Prates says control of the refinery should be resumed in the 1st semester

The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, said that control of the Mataripe refinery, in Bahia, should be resumed in the first half of 2024. The announcement was made by Prates on social media shortly after a meeting with the chairman of the board of investment fund Mubadala Capital.

The Mataripe refinery was sold, in 2021, by the Bolsonaro government to Acelen, a company from the Mubadala Capital fund. Mubadala is the investment arm of the sovereign wealth fund of Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.

“We have agreed that our teams will intensify work immediately after the return of the Carnival holidays with a view to finalizing the new corporate and operational configuration in the first half of 2024. Other details and current progress will be kept confidential until the process is completed”, said Prates on the social network X, this Tuesday (13).

In the publication, Prates also stated that he had spoken to investors “about the oil and gas sector scenarios, as well as the effects of the energy transition, its realistic pace and its impact on state-owned companies that traditionally operate hydrocarbons”.

In December last year, after months of negotiations with the investment fund, Petrobras reported that “it received communication from Mubadala Capital proposing the formalization of recent discussions on the formation of a potential strategic partnership.”

“The initiative’s scope is business focused on traditional refining, as well as the development of a biorefinery, both in the state of Bahia,” Petrobras stated at the time.

At the beginning of January 2024, an audit by the Comptroller General of the Union (CGU) indicated that the sale of the refinery was made below the market price, mainly due to the choice of the timing of the deal, during the Covid-19 pandemic, when the international price of oil was falling.

The report did not categorically state that there was an economic loss with the sale of the refinery, however, it questioned the timing of the deal, arguing that Petrobras could have waited for oil to recover on the international market.