(PN) Petrobras will have 47 projects included in the new Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), launched this Friday, in Rio de Janeiro, by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. The company’s investments in PAC 2023 amount to R$ 323 billion.
The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, highlighted, among them, pre-salt production systems, revitalization of conventional oil fields, such as Marlim, Albacora and Roncador; construction of new platforms and ships in Brazil. “We are going to fill our shipyards again, in Rio de Janeiro, in Bahia, in the Northeast, in the South”, promised Prates.
Another project foresees the improvement of the S-10 diesel produced at the Paulínia (Replan) and São José dos Campos (Revap) refineries, both in the state of São Paulo.
In the energy transition, he said that the idea is to transform refineries into biorefineries. The first to be transformed is a refinery inaugurated by Getúlio Vargas, in 1937, in Rio Grande do Sul, which will manufacture products 100% from vegetable oil.
Still in the refining area, the goal is to double the processing capacity of the Abreu e Lima Refinery (RNEST), in Pernambuco, to 260,000 barrels per day. “We are going to enter the vegetable oil market, either by manufacturing biodiesel or through processing”, guaranteed the president of Petrobras.
Prates also referred to nine wells planned for exploration on the Equatorial Margin, which depend on licensing from the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama). There are also gas flow projects and the construction of two gas pipelines, in Sergipe and Alagoas. Petrobras also intends to promote the realization of projects in partnership with neighboring countries, such as Bolivia, Venezuela and Argentina.
Strategic plan
Petrobras’ Strategic Plan (SP) 2023-2027 guided the selection of the company’s priority projects that will receive investments from the new PAC. One of them is a decarbonization fund. Prates announced that others may be added to the list after approval of the new EP 2024-2028.
The production of petrochemical derivatives, fertilizers and fuels with a lower carbon footprint or entirely renewable origin is also planned among the mentioned projects. New businesses will receive investments, such as sustainable hydrogen and carbon capture and storage (CCUS), innovative technologies on the rise in the market.
A green model was defined for the allocation of 26 platforms to be decommissioned over the next five years. The objective is to achieve sustainability, safety and care for people and the environment. Jean Paul Prates’ bet is for Petrobras to become a global reference in this activity.
PAC
The first version of the PAC was announced by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in January 2007, with the aim of overcoming the country’s infrastructure bottlenecks. First, the program provided for investments of R$ 503.9 billion in infrastructure actions in the areas of transport, energy, sanitation, housing and water resources, between 2007 and 2010.
A second stage of the program, PAC 2, was announced in 2011 by then-president Dilma Rousseff, with planned investments of R$708 billion in social and urban infrastructure actions.
One of the main challenges of the New PAC will be to avoid the same mistakes as in previous editions, which resulted in discontinuity and stoppage of works. The Federal Audit Court (TCU) points out that, at the end of 2022, the country had more than 8,600 paralyzed works, which represents about 38.5% of the contracts paid with Union resources. According to the TCU, Poor planning of developments is the main factor that halts work.
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