Brazil’s state-run oil giant, Petrobras, has declared its interest in deepwater exploration blocks in Nigeria and other African countries, while retaining its principal region of development outside South America.
The company’s Chief Executive Officer, Magda Chambriard, said that Côte d’Ivoire extended what she described as a “red carpet” by offering Petrobras preferential rights to acquire nine offshore exploratory blocks.
Chambriard made this known in an interview with Reuters on Friday, stating that the move signals a deepening of ties between the Brazilian oil major and the West African country.
She said, “Ivory Coast has extended the ‘red carpet’ for Petrobras to explore deep and ultra-deep waters off its coast, when it gave the company preference in buying nine offshore exploratory blocks on Wednesday.”
She added that Nigeria, Angola, and Namibia have also expressed interest in working with the Brazilian oil giant.
“We are experts in the eastern margin of Brazil,” said Chambriard, citing geological similarities between the region and Africa. “The correlation between Brazil and Africa is unequivocal, so we need to go to Africa.”
Local media reports recalled that three weeks ago, Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima said Brazil’s state oil company was seeking to re-enter Nigeria’s oil sector, with a specific interest in frontier deepwater acreage.
He said the effort is part of broader efforts to revitalise bilateral cooperation ahead of the 2025 Nigeria-Brazil Strategic Dialogue Mechanism.
In recent years, Petrobras has shown an interest in buying stakes in oil assets abroad, especially in Africa, as it looks to boost reserves while it faces delays in obtaining environmental permits to drill for new oil off the coast of the Amazon rainforest.
Petrobras is also seeking to explore India’s coast, taking part in an upcoming oil block auction scheduled for July, Chambriard said.
Petrobras’ plans mark a return to the African continent after the company divested assets in the region under previous governments, as part of a broad plan that made the company focus on high-productivity areas in Brazil’s pre-salt fields.
The plans to explore new oil fields are part of Chambriard’s strategy to handle the critical task of balancing President Luiz Inacio Lula’s ambitions to use Petrobras to boost the economy with delivering profits to its investors, all while contending with the global challenge of lower oil prices.
Petrobras, a cornerstone of Brazil’s economy, is also at the centre of high-stakes tension within Lula’s administration, which aims to leverage oil revenues for economic growth while showcasing Brazil, the host of the upcoming COP30 climate summit, as a champion in the global fight against climate change.
Meanwhile, the company’s plans in Africa have already started being implemented. In 2023, it bought a stake in an offshore oil field in South Africa, and in early 2024, it purchased an interest in fields in the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, where it hopes to drill a well this year, Chambriard said.
Despite the recent efforts, Chambriard said the firm was outbid by France’s TotalEnergies for a share in Galp Energia’s offshore discovery in the Mopane field, in Namibia.
GIK/APA