LatinNews Daily - 18 February 2025

*Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petrobras has launched an international tender to acquire eight tankers to transport natural gas. Companies will have 90 days, from 17 February, to submit bids to provide three gas tankers with a capacity of 7,000 cubic metres; two vessels with 14,000 cubic metre capacity; and three semi-refrigerated ships that can carry 10,000 cubic metres. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended the event yesterday where Petrobras announced the tender and expressed support for more new rigs and platforms and the continuation of oil exploration and refining. The tender to acquire more transport vessels comes two days after Petrobras began operations for its new floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) unit, dubbed the FPSO Almirante Tamandaré, in the Búzios field of the Santos basin, near Brazil’s south-eastern coast. Almirante Tamandaré is expected to process up to 225,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and 12m cubic metres of natural gas. Petrobras is likely to continue focusing on the Búzios field given that it has recently discovered more oil. On 14 February the oil giant announced that tests carried out in one of its wells in Búzios confirmed the presence of reserves at a depth of 5,600m.