Petrobras America

Name: Petrobras America Inc.
Address: 10350 Richmond Ave., Suite 1400, Houston, Texas 77042
Phone: 713-808-2000

Petrobras America, Inc. is an international business unit of state-controlled oil company Petrobras Brazil, headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company is engaged in oil exploration and production in the Gulf of Mexico. Petrobras wholly owns Pasadena Refinery in Texas, and owns stakes in the Cascade, Chinook, and Cottonwood oil and gas fields in the Gulf of Mexico. Petrobras America is engaged in the purchase and sale of petroleum products, including crude oil, fuel oil, gasoline, special products, naphtha, and liquid petroleum gas. Petrobras procures oil services equipment and related supplies, primarily to support its operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Worldwide, Petrobras has daily average oil and gas production of 2.4 million barrels of gas and oil (2008 data). The company operates 16 refineries; 112 production platforms; and has its own tanker fleet of 54 vessels, making Petrobras one of the world’s largest integrated energy companies, participating in the entire oil, natural gas, and energy industry supply chain.

Petrobras was on track to begin producing oil at its Cascade and Chinook fields in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico by mid 2010, by bringing online wells, one in Cascade and one in Chinook. For the project, Petrobras had secured the first U.S. license to use a Floating Production, Storage and Offloading, or FPSO, to operate in the Gulf of Mexico. The vessel has the capacity to produce up to 80,000 barrels per day of oil, and Petrobras has extensive experience using the FPSO off the coast of Brazil. The moratorium on certain drilling operations in the US Gulf of Mexico has halted these plans.

In January, Petrobras exercised an option to acquire the remaining 50 percent of the Cascade field held by Oklahoma City -based Devon Energy Corp. The move came after Devon announced that it would sell its international and Gulf of Mexico assets to reduce debt and refocus on North American onshore gas fields. In the Chinook field, Petrobras has a 66.7 percent stake and operates in partnership with France’s Total SA, which holds the remaining 33.3 percent.

Petrobras is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as “PBR”. The company’s main competitors include BP, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell.

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