(epbr) Petrobras has begun reviewing the five-year strategic plan and will release the new plan for the period 2024-2028 at the end of 2023, along the lines of the last revisions, said Maurício Tolmasquim, current executive manager of Strategy at Petrobras.
Tolmasquim was appointed to the Board of Energy Transition and Renewable Energy, a new area created in the company, but which still needs the approval of the board of directors to be implemented in fact.
According to Tolmasquim, the elaboration of the new plan is still at the beginning. The executive stated that the energy transition “wasn’t a priority” for Petrobras and that the company “is lagging behind” in terms of scope 3 emissions, which involve products offered to the market – in this case, mostly oil derivatives.
Need to diversify the portfolio
“Our challenge is to recover lost time”, said the executive.
At an event at the Brazilian Institute of Oil and Gas (IBP), Tolmasquim stressed that the decarbonization of the company’s products is one of the topics that should have more space in the new plan.
“Without a doubt, oil will still generate income for some time for Petrobras, but that doesn’t mean that the company should only look at that. It is necessary to diversify the portfolio, the activities, because it is inevitable that in the long term the demand for oil in the world will fall and Petrobras has to be prepared for this new reality”, he said.
Petrobras’ 2023-2027 strategic plan established the segments of offshore wind, hydrogen, biorefining and carbon capture as priority areas to be studied by the company in the energy transition. Among these areas, the only one that had defined investment values was biorefining, with an estimated investment of US$ 600 million by 2027.
The government transition report had listed the review of Petrobras’ 2023-2027 strategic plan among the new government’s priority topics, with the need to indicate a new plan within 60 days after President Lula’s inauguration.
The objective, according to the transition group, should be to resume the company’s participation in sectors such as refining, distribution and biofuels.
Petrobras, however, has internal mechanisms for preparing and approving proposals for the five-year planning that require a longer period than the 60 days proposed by the transition group.
The reformulation of the board of directors, the area responsible for revising the plan, is still ongoing and should only be completed on April 27, when shareholders will decide which will be Petrobras’ new board.
Products on the radar of the new boards
Petrobras’ board previously approved the proposal to reformulate the company’s executive command, with the creation of the Board of Energy Transition and Renewable Energies.
The new board “will coordinate decarbonization, climate change, new technologies and sustainability activities and will incorporate natural gas commercial activities,” the company said. The change was expected since the beginning of Lula’s government.
In a recent article, Jean Paul Prates defended that the company should “apply Petrobras’ experience and technical excellence in the development of bioproducts and in new frontiers of renewable energy, in search of opportunities to diversify our operations”.
He mentions that natural gas is “the transitional fuel for hydrogen”. And Petrobras’ plans to “convert our refining units into bio-petro-gas refineries, where we will process new generation fuels”.
The executive reinforces that new energy businesses, such as the company’s investment in offshore wind, are integrated with Petrobras’ profile.
“Our operations in deep and ultra-deep waters place us in a privileged position for the generation of offshore wind energy, including in an integrated way with oil and gas production”, he says.
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