Petrobras
Summary
Petrobras is producing more oil at a lower cost, and it's not even trying. Q1 2026 results came in with record output, a record utilization factor, and a record S10 diesel yield. The company is now churning out 2.58 million barrels a day, with April hitting a new monthly record of 2.73 million. The pre-salt wells are behaving like money printers, and the rigs are delivering ahead of schedule. Búzios and Tupi are both over 1 million barrels a day. P-79 came online three months early. The company is adding 180,000 barrels a day from four rigs alone. This is not a plan. This is happening. The market is getting the product, and the market is paying for it. The only question is whether the government will stop subsidizing diesel before the company stops subsidizing the government.
Key Takeaways
- Q1 2026 production hit 2.58 million barrels per day, with April setting a new monthly record of 2.73 million barrels per day, a 30% increase over 2024 levels.
- Petrobras is adding 180,000 barrels per day from four FPSO rigs, including the recently accelerated launch of P-79, which came online three months ahead of schedule.
- Refining utilization reached 97.4% in Q1, surpassing 100% in April, the highest level since 2014, driven by operational efficiency and increased processing capacity.
- S10 Diesel production hit a record 512,000 barrels per day in March, supported by modernization at REPLAN and Revap, with a 68% yield for diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel.
- EBITDA excluding one-time items was BRL 11.7 billion, and net income excluding one-time items reached $4.5 billion, though the full impact of higher Brent prices will be seen in Q2 due to export pricing lags.
- Gross debt stood at $71.2 billion, with a target to converge to $65 billion by the end of the plan, while maintaining a robust liquidity position of BRL 9.1 billion in cash.
- The company is accelerating CapEx to include the Sergipe Deepwater Project, adding 240,000 barrels per day of oil and 22 million cubic meters of gas daily, funded by higher international oil prices.
- Petrobras aims to supply 85% of Brazilian diesel demand by 2030 and is actively evaluating projects to achieve 100% self-sufficiency in diesel and gasoline for the domestic market.
- The government provided a BRL 1.50 per liter subsidy for diesel in March, protecting consumers from price volatility, with Petrobras receiving these subsidies as accounts receivable to improve working capital.
- Petrobras is pursuing international expansion, including a delegation to Mexico to explore partnerships with Pemex for Gulf of Mexico exploration and mature field operations, alongside efforts in Africa and South America.
- Braskem is a strategic priority, with Petrobras taking a more active role following a new shareholders agreement, focusing on operational synergies, working capital support, and capturing improved petrochemical spreads without consolidating debt.
Full Transcript
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: Good morning, and welcome to Petrobras’ webcast for investors and analysts about our results for the 1st quarter of 2026. It’s a pleasure to be here with you today. This event will be held in Portuguese and English. You can access the links to both languages on our investor relations website. All participants will be in listen-only mode during the company’s presentation, and after that, we will have a question and answer session. We have with us today Magda Chambriard, CEO of Petrobras, Angélica Laureano, Executive Logistics and Commercialization Director, Clarice Coppetti, Executive Director for Corporate Affairs, Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Investor Relations, Flavio Bretanha, representing the Engineering, Technology, and Innovation Directors, Ricardo Vactor, Governance and Compliance Executive Director, Sylvia Maria Couto dos Anjos, Exploration and Production Director, and William França, Industrial Processes and Products and temporary Energy Transition and Sustainability Director.
To start us off, we will begin with Fernando Melgarejo. Excuse me, for CEO Magda, who will make her opening remarks. Go ahead, ma’am. Thank you, Eduardo. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a pleasure to be here with you to present our good results once again for Petrobras. I’d like to greet Fernando Melgarejo, our financial director. As I said, every day Petrobras has been overcoming and surpassing its own results. When we see these results, it might seem like reaching these records has been simple, but this is due to a joint effort from our teams, like I mentioned before.
It’s a highly complex job with high levels of technology, involving capacity expansion projects, managing our reservoir operational efficiency, and using all the opportunities that we have to offer our investors from the government or from the private sector, increasingly more oil and gas and byproducts.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: At the end, we are providing energy in general with safety first. Since we’re talking about surpassing our own results, I would like to remind you that Petrobras has been doing this also in capacity. When we remember that FPSO Almirante Tamandaré, the biggest one we had was an oil rig designed to produce 225,000 barrels of oil per day. It was the biggest in Brazil, and we were able to expand its capacity to reach 270,000 barrels a day. We have simply increased in this platform, our production by 45,000 barrels of oil per day.
In the future, we have 3 more rigs, which are exactly like this, that will be delivered and are being built in Singapore, and we will have a total of 4 with this capacity expansion of 45 thousand barrels of oil per day beyond their original design. Forty-five times 4 is 180. As a result of this capacity expansion, and as we overcome the challenges we have in Petrobras, we will deliver a 180,000 barrels a day rig in addition to what we already have. This is all the result of the excellent work we have done in the company. I would like to say that beyond the technical excellence of our teams in developing these opportunities, we are also counting on surprising productivity from the pre-salt wells.
When we say that we’re expanding by 45,000 barrels a day of oil at Almirante Tamandaré, and that we have 3 other rigs that can do that, in these 4 rigs, we will add 180,000 barrels of oil a day, and that’s because this can only happen due to the exceptional production capacity of the pre-salt layer that we have in our hands. Currently, we have the biggest deepwater oil field in the world, which is the Búzios field, a giant field that produces a little over 1 million barrels of oil per day, which will soon reach 1.5 million, and we might be able to deliver a field some time from now that will produce 2 million barrels of oil per day.
Now we have 2 fields that have surpassed the milestone of 1 million barrels per day, which is Búzios and Tupi. Going back to Búzios, now we have 8 platforms in operation in Búzios. On May 1, the P-79 platform, the 8th platform of the Búzios field, started production 3 months before the scheduled start of operations. We expect to reach the capacity of 180,000 barrels of oil per day with only 3-4 wells. As a reminder, the original project was based on 4 wells, and we will be able to reach the capacity of the platform with 3 or 4 wells, which is amazing, both in terms of our productivity and the productivity of the pre-salt area.
When it comes to project capacity, we also need to say that Petrobras is delivering more than what was initially designed, and we’re looking at this platform of 180,000 barrels per day and telling the team that, "Well, now you’ve spoiled us. Now we need 200,000 barrels per day." The teams are working on that and making it possible. As I said, we are overcoming challenges every day. Recently, we also took a very important step for the production of oil and gas in the northeast of Brazil. Due to the increased prices in the international oil market, we decided to expedite the possibility to fund the Sergipe Deepwater Project.
You probably remember that in our group of projects with guaranteed funding, one of the SEAP platforms had undergone a value increase in terms of crude oil, so we can guarantee the funding of 2 of these platforms. Sergipe has now 2 projects approved that will have the capacity so far to produce 240,000 barrels of oil per day and to process 22 million cubic meters of gas per day. When it comes to natural gas, Petrobras has been consistently investing to expand the capacity to produce natural gas and also to expand its capacity to deliver energy coming from thermal power plants.
We’re gonna have a gas pipeline that will be able to produce in this deepwater project to deliver 18 million cubic meters of gas in addition to what had been initially planned, which corresponds to half of our supply of natural gas for the first quarter of 2026. We’re also proud to say that we have contracted all of our thermal power plants that had gone out of contract in the last auction that was promoted in Brazil. With that, with the delivery of another nine thermal power plant contracts, we’re being able to add to Petrobras’ annual revenue another BRL 4.5 billion per year. When it comes to refining, the team spirit is the same, and the goal to surpass our challenges is equally the same.
We’re permanently in search of excellence and in search of more and better results. In March, we’ve reached yet another record in the production of S10 Diesel with a low or lower sulfur content. We are producing 512 thousand barrels per day for the S10 Diesel, a result that reflects the investments we’ve been making to modernize our refineries and to increase the supply of greater added value byproducts. Our S10 Diesel is our highest added value product, as a reminder. Last year, we started to operate this new hydrotreatment unit at REPLAN, our refinery, and we completed the modernization of Revap, which shows that these investments are already creating results in terms of a higher S10 Diesel production.
In terms of our refining park, the utilization factor reached at 97.4%, which recently, due to the war between the U.S. and Iran, has now surpassed 100%. As I said, Petrobras does not like limitations. Our goal is to surpass limitations each and every day. Going back to the 97.4% figure, it is the highest level of utilization since 2014. Since December 2014. In total safety, a level that we’re very proud to have reached, but something that we’ve already left behind in April and in May. In addition, in addition to the diesel, in terms of processing capacity, we’ve expanded it while keeping the yield profile for diesel and gasoline, also for aviation kerosene.
This increased processing capacity is very important in a scenario of higher prices of oil byproducts, which has been intensified by the recent conflicts in the Middle East, which bring about restrictions to the global supply of products and a higher pressure on our prices. It’s also important to say that Petrobras is constantly asked about price volatility and how we, as a company, how we see the increase in international prices, whether we’re talking about crude oil or byproducts. We’re proud to say that we’re having excellent results in terms of the sales of crude oil to international markets, and we’ve also been working alongside the Brazilian government in terms of providing funding to sales in the national territory of our byproducts in the domestic market.
Just to give you an idea, in March up until mid-April, our diesel, which reached a BRL 0.002 per liter of increase for Brazilian consumers, was funded, which represented an increase in diesel prices of over 46%. These results have not yet been fully seen in the results of the 1st quarter, but they will appear in the results of the 2nd quarter. We’re also working on the issue of gasoline, and very soon you’re gonna hear good news concerning our gasoline. Our efforts towards increasing the production of byproducts for the Brazilian market in a profitable manner has been contributing to mitigate the effects of these, this global context in Brazil, strengthening the energy security of Brazil and preserving the expected returns for the company.
The increase in the processing of oil and in the diesel supply is one of the pillars of our refining strategy. We are committed to offering high-quality products and to being the best alternative for our customers. When we look at the outcome of this war, we see a big opportunity. In our business plan for 2026 to 2030, we expect to supply 85% of the Brazilian demand for diesel with the results achieved by the company. Due to the confidence of the Brazilian market in Petrobras, we are looking at an opportunity that will probably come with our next business plan, which is to achieve self-sufficiency in the diesel supply for Brazil.
What I’m saying is that we’re now analyzing projects that will have the capacity not only to produce 85% of the entire demand for diesel in Brazil up until 2030, but once again, to surpass these milestones. This is something that’s on our radar every day with our possibility to surpass milestones and challenges. We will likely be able to deliver a refining plant that will be able to supply 100% of the Brazilian demand for diesel. When we talk about diesel, of course, gasoline always comes in the wake of diesel. We’re talking about supplying 100% of the demand for diesel and gasoline in Brazil. We’ve increased our processing level. We are committed to these milestones, but even more importantly, we’re committed to offering high-quality products and to being the best alternative for our customers.
We keep on monitoring the international scenario, the impacts of volatility on the oil and gas market, and our commercial strategy remains the same. Our governance remains the same. We attempt to compete in a more efficient manner, taking into account our market share, the optimization of our refining assets, and the profitability of our company in an ever sustainable manner. Since we do not transfer to Brazilian consumers the abrupt price changes, and since we can also rely on the support of the federal government in terms of funding these products so that the price increases due to the war do not impact the Brazilian market, we’ve been very open to this partnership with the federal government.
After all, the federal government is keen on maintaining Petrobras’ capacity to remain stable at difficult times, also to keep offering products that are accessible to the Brazilian consumers. This is our market. We take good care of it. We make money from it. The Brazilian government has been acknowledging our role in delivering to the Brazilian market accessible products. This partnership between Petrobras and the Brazilian government has been, I can tell you, very fruitful for Petrobras and for Brazilian society. These were my operational highlights because they’re the foundation of our financial results, especially in a context of high Brent prices. One, where we look forward into the future, we see every possibility to increase our production also to increase the capture of the returns of this market to Petrobras. We are now in the midst of a virtual cycle.
Our investments are being converted into more production and higher added-value products available on the market, as well as higher revenue for the company. More revenue for the company, more taxes for society, in addition to increasingly more profitable projects in the company’s portfolio. This cycle results in the creation of more job positions and a greater economic development for Brazilians, as well as a wider and a deeper presence of Petrobras abroad. We’ve been reiterating our interest in producing oil for international customers. The Atlantic margin of Africa has been one of our goals, in addition to possibilities in other countries as well. You probably heard that a while ago we were in Mexico.
We now have a delegation going to Mexico soon to analyze new business opportunities, and we remain persistent in our search for increasingly better results for the company and for expanding our business portfolio. While maintaining our focus on return and tax discipline. To give you details about the excellent operational performance that was reflected in the financial results of the first quarter of 2026, I would like to give the floor to our Chief Financial Officer, Fernando Melgarejo. I’d like to thank you for your presence and remind you, like we’ve been saying, if you place your bets against Petrobras, you’re going to lose money. We’re very proud to say that.
Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer/Investor Relations, Petrobras: Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Good morning to all here in this room. We’re going to present our results for the first quarter of 2026. We’re very pleased with our operational performance as well as our strategic position. These are strong points that are highlights for this company’s management. We’re going to start on slide 3, talking about production. Last year, we discussed CapEx frequently in our webcasts, always emphasizing our focus on executing the business plan and delivering on projects, often ahead of schedule. That goes for deliveries and for production. The chart on the left-hand side shows the results of this strategy, a rising production curve. In the first quarter of 2026, we produced 2.58 million barrels of oil per day.
In April, we significantly produced 2.73 million barrels of oil per day, a new monthly record for Petrobras. This all is the result of our focus and commitment. If we compare the first column on the left, which represents 2024, where we produced 2.152 million of barrels per day, with April 2026, this is a 30% growth, which is truly significant. Three factors have sustained this production growth. More projects to increase capacity, such as new oil rigs, increased operational efficiency, which has strengthened the stability of our operations, and an efficient reservoir management. This shows that we are more efficient and managing our reservoirs better. Here on this slide, we have some concrete examples of this strategy. In the Búzios field, platforms P-78 and P-79 have come online.
Both have a capacity of 180,000 barrels per day. Let’s continue on slide 4. Petrobras invested $5 billion in the first quarter, with nearly 90% going to E&P projects. Our CapEx is focused on high-return projects. On the right-hand side, you can see the evolution of investments in wells, subsea activities, oil rig construction, and others. We increased our investments into wells by 11%, 75% in subsea activities, and 22% in rigs. All of these investments have been focused on production. We also increased the number of physical deliveries. We recently delivered P-78 and 79 with their related investments already completed. Our focus is now on the well interconnection campaign and the construction of P-80, 82, and 83.
These three rigs will have a capacity of 225,000 barrels per day each, and all of them, it’s important to highlight, are owned by us and are no longer chartered, as was our previous strategic model before Alexandre de Gusmão and Almirante Tamandaré. On slide 5, we can see that in the first quarter, we increased both our oil production and our fuel production. Our refineries produced 1.8 million barrels of by-products per day, with S10 Diesel production hitting a record high of 512,000 barrels per day in March. Another highlight is our utilization factor, which went up by six percentage points in the quarter, and in March exceeded 97%, the highest level since 2014. We did this safely and profitably with a 68% yield of diesel, gasoline, and QAV.
As a result, we have more fuel for the Brazilian market with fewer imports. I’d like to emphasize the importance of this increase in processing capacity in the current scenario of global supply constraints and price pressures. Producing more refined products helps mitigate the effects of geopolitical conflicts on the domestic market. Petrobras is demonstrating once again that it is fundamental to the country’s energy security. We are self-sufficient in gasoline, and as we heard before, in the future, we will also be self-sufficient in diesel. It’s a matter of time. Let’s move on to slide 6. We highlight the key figures for our financial results. We achieved an EBITDA excluding one-time items of BRL 11.7 billion, driven mainly by higher production volumes.
Our net income, excluding one-time items, reached $4.5 billion, and our operating cash flow stood at $8.4 billion in the first quarter. There are two important points here. First, the rise in Brent prices is not reflected in the first quarter results because the price surge began in March. Exports recognized this month are mostly priced in February when they are traded and shipped from Brazil to their destinations. All the prices we got in March, or most of them, was still priced before these higher oil prices. We will start seeing this increase in the second quarter of 2026.
Furthermore, the record production levels had virtually no impact on earnings because we had a backlog of exports amounting to around 80,000 barrels per day, which is another important point that will sustain our results for the second quarter. This inventory will be monetized at a higher price than it would have been in the first quarter. Let’s continue on slide 7. Looking now at gross debt, we remain within the limit set out in our business plan below $75 billion. We closed the quarter with $71.2 billion in gross debt, a slight increase, but the trend is downward. I reiterate our expectation of convergence to $67 billion in 2026, and $65 billion by the end of the plan. It may be even smaller, lower than that.
As stated in our business plan, our priority is using cash to invest in the profitable projects in our plan that were left out of the approved budget due to a scenario that was very different from the current one and our responsibility to the company’s capital discipline. When we made this plan, it was a different moment and a different scenario, but we laid out some flexibility in this plan, which allowed us to include projects or postpone them, what we call base and target CapEx. We have to emphasize that over 60% of the total debt comes from leases that, under accounting standards, must be recognized as debt. These amounts are associated with assets that generate production and consequently revenue for the company.
We have an efficient and flexible capital structure, even in more challenging scenarios, and we remain committed to capital discipline and the efficient allocation of resources. We will continue to invest to generate value, always maintaining our debt level. We maintain a robust liquidity position. We closed the first quarter of the year with BRL 9.1 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Our minimum cash is BRL 6 billion. On slide 8, we show the status of some indicators in relation to our targets for the 2026/2030 plan. Oil production reached 2.6 million barrels per day in the first quarter, therefore within the upper range of the target for the year. We highlight the continued ramp-up of the new production systems, P-78 and P-79, in addition to complementary projects.
Efficiency in reservoir management and improvements in asset integrity and management were also key to our excellent operational performance. We’re working to deliver production above the midpoint of the target, and the first quarter 2026 results indicate that we are on the right track. This is not a promise, but rather a pursuit of greater operational efficiency. We’re maintaining our guidance while making every effort to produce even more. We invested BRL 4.5 billion in the quarter out of a total of BRL 16.9 billion projected for 2026. We continue to strictly adhere to capital discipline, prioritizing projects that create value and accelerating deliveries whenever possible. Our commitment is delivering value. Operating expenses totaled BRL 5.6 billion for the quarter. It’s worth noting that the exchange rates, transportation costs, and increased production all impact this metric.
For the year, we are maintaining our forecast of BRL 20.2 billion. As for lease cash flow, BRL 2.4 billion in the first quarter of 2026 compared to BRL 10 billion for the year is also in line with expectations. It is under control from our perspective. In summary, our projections remain unchanged even though we are working to accelerate projects and exceed our production targets. We continue on slide 9. Here we present our contribution through tax payments. It was BRL 72.4 billion total for the first quarter, of which BRL 27.3 billion were paid in federal taxes, BRL 29 billion to the states, BRL 700 million to municipality, and nearly BRL 15 billion in government royalties. On this last slide, we have a few final remarks.
Oil prices have risen, but we remain committed to the same goals set out in our business plan, a focus on capital discipline and responsible investment execution. We also remain focused on increasing our production through operational efficiency and the proper management of all our assets. Last but not least, our commitment to governance, an essential pillar for value creation in the company. Thank you once again, and I will be available along with the other directors to answer any questions you may have. I’ll now hand it over to Eduardo, who will begin the Q&A. Thank you, Fernando. Thank you, Magda. We will now begin the question and answer session. I’m going to ask each analyst to only ask one question so that everyone can participate. The first question will be asked by Leonardo Marcondes from Bank of America. Go ahead. Hello. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
Leonardo Marcondes, Analyst, Bank of America: Thank you for taking my question. I would like to hear your perspective on the downstream market. What can you tell us about the market and prices in a broader sense? Can you tell us about what the supply dynamics are like in Brazil right now? If you can tell us if there’s any risk of shortages. Considering the recent price increases, how do you assess the need for adjustments in diesel and gasoline prices? Thank you. Thank you, Marcondes. I’ll start answering your question, and then I’ll hand it over to Angelica and William. We are keeping track of prices, and we also know that when things are said in the press, oil goes up, and then we hear something else in the press, and it goes even higher.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: Sometimes you see a difference of BRL 15 per barrel within a single day. Our governance and our price policies is not passing this volatility on. We are reducing the anxiety that we see in international prices when we set prices for Brazilian consumers, even though we’re following the market in general, and we have a tendency to follow international prices. This is what we’ve done. In March, the war broke out on February 28. In March, exactly on the 12th, we had a subvention from the federal government about diesel prices. Within 12 days of the war, we got a BRL 0.70 subvention. After 15 days, we also got another one with an additional BRL 0.80. The domestic market currently has a subvention of BRL 1.50.
There’s also one for imports, which has been approved and is being applied retroactively. When it comes to diesel prices, we are keeping track of it, accompanying it, and we understand that we are 100% compliant to our pricing policy as international prices change. Gasoline is a little bit more complicated because not only is it affected, but it competes with Brazilian ethanol. We’re looking at gasoline prices internationally hiking up, but at the same time, we know that here in Brazil, we have ethanol, which competes with gasoline. In Brazil, we also have a flex-fuel fleet. Most passenger vehicles in Brazil allow drivers to decide between gasoline and ethanol in every station. They can choose between gasoline or ethanol, whatever has the lowest price.
As gas prices go up, and you heard me saying about a potential price increase for gasoline. We are always keeping track of that in comparison to ethanol prices in the Brazilian market. About 15 days ago, ethanol prices were going down significantly in the Brazilian market. It is a competitor for us, so we are always keeping track of our market share and how the international market is changing, as well as the ethanol market in Brazil. There will be a gas price increase, but we have to be sure that this market is still partly ours. We also had an increase in QAV prices. As you know, QAV is a product that follows parametric formulas for its prices with signed contracts. Airlines and distribution companies had trouble with QAV.
We had to extend deadlines, the financial director will explain it to you better, we diluted prices for payment in the second half of the year. It’s as if we were financing higher QAV prices, guaranteeing that this will pass on with an extension financed by Petrobras. We recently had an increase in natural gas prices. Again, this is compliant to our current contracts, we’re looking at figures for August to see if this increase will also require something from us. We might need to support these price increases with extended payment dates. As I’m saying here, we are always analyzing how prices are changing in the international market, our policy is not to pass this volatility to consumers.
The most important thing is that we are maintaining the company’s market share in the Brazilian market. We understand that this is our market, and we’re not willing to let go of it.
Angélica Laureano, Executive Logistics and Commercialization Director, Petrobras: Okay. Angélica will now talk about the price evolution. Franca will also tell you how we are going to increase the production of byproducts. It’s also important to say that there is no indication of any risk of structural shortage on the market because in Brazil we have multiple agents and ANP as a regulatory coordinator. They’ve been constantly monitoring the volumes available on the market. Petrobras has been contributing with our production and also within the safety parameters. We’ve been monitoring the market constantly in order to define the prices of our products. Thank you. Hi, Leonardo. Thank you for your question. Concerning refineries, we’ve ended the quarter at 95, 97. We’re operating at 100 and 102, 103%. Since yesterday we’ve been at 103%.
Bruno Montanari, Analyst, Goldman Sachs3: Concerning self-sufficiency, since last year, we added 70 in new S10 Diesel barrels with REPLAN new diesel HDT and the revamp of the Paraíba Valley Refinery. This year we started to expand train 1 at RNEST. We were operating at 85%, now we’re at 140 due to huge efforts by President Magda. This increase has been achieved within the regulatory safety limits. We are now at 140,000 barrels, and RNEST produces more than 100,000 worth of diesel, an additional 30,000. Our plants are expecting to achieve another 30,000 barrels of diesel, and we are quite advanced in terms of our plants, 27, 31, to reach 500 in terms of barrels of diesel.
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: This is our goal, and this is also our challenge at Petrobras. Thank you, President Magda and William, Angélica. Now, before I give the floor to Rodrigo for the next question, I’d like to ask you to restrict your questions to 1 question per analyst, so that everybody can ask their questions. Rodrigo Almeida from BTG, you have the floor. Thank you, Edu, and good afternoon, Magda, Fernando, everyone. I’d like to keep on discussing the fuels, and I’d like to dive into more details about the funding. In terms of working capital, this is possibly what stands out the most looking from an outside perspective. The first quarter had a slight effect due to the funding or subsidies.
Bruno Montanari, Analyst, Goldman Sachs0: I’d like to further understand from you first, about the discussions with the government concerning the sharing of invoices and information with ANP so that they can start making payments. Also the current scenario in terms of internal projections concerning the receipts timeline and about diesel and all the other products, such as aviation kerosene and natural gas. What’s the impact of these products in terms of working capital for the company, given that these volumes tend to grow very quickly? Those were my questions. Thank you. Thank you, Rodrigo. I’m gonna ask Directors Fernando and Angélica to answer your question. Good afternoon, Rodrigo. Starting with the subsidies in March, it’s they’re in accounts receivable. They’ve been accounted for in our BRL 740 million results.
Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer/Investor Relations, Petrobras: Now it’s only a matter of procedures, and we expect to get paid within this quarter. As for the other ones, there is still an ongoing operational workflow that needs to be completed before we get paid. The impacts are reflected in the increased operational cash flow of the company and the free cash flow that we’ll be seeing in the next few days, much closer to the current market prices, not paid by the end customers. The end customers are being protected as a result of the efforts made by the government. Part of these revenues come from the end consumers, and part of them come from the government. Therefore, the prices will be within our expectations in a few days. Diesel is still being operationalized.
Angélica Laureano, Executive Logistics and Commercialization Director, Petrobras: We signed also a subsidy in April. We signed a declaration of adhesion to the subsidy program. That will also have a positive impact in terms of working capital and cash flow for the company. Actually, it’s not natural gas. It’s liquid gas, and Petrobras is able to receive subsidies both for imported and domestically produced diesel. Thank you, Angélica and Fernando. Next question comes from Vicente Falanga Neto from Bradesco BBI. You have the floor, Vicente. Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for taking my question. It’s about the visit of the committee to Mexico. As President Magda mentioned, that’s also related to Braskem.
Bruno Montanari, Analyst, Goldman Sachs2: Now that Petrobras has a new shareholders agreement and probably a few things have already been discussed and decided, my question is, what can Petrobras do to strengthen Braskem in terms of competitiveness, capital structure? I read an article about the committee in the press, and one of the items in the agenda was the polyethylene plant in Mexico, and who’s running the risk of losing control and et cetera. I mean, what can Petrobras do to contribute to petrochemicals and to invest in the Gulf of Mexico? Thanks for your question, Vicente. Our trip to Mexico involved multiple goals. One of them was to talk to the president of Mexico about the opportunity of entering a partnership with Pemex to explore the Mexican part of the Gulf of Mexico.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: If you look at the Gulf of Mexico that’s been split into two parts, you see that the North American part of it is highly developed and the Mexican portion with very little development, especially in the ultra-deep water environment, which is our specialization at Petrobras. This trip to Mexico had the goal of opening up new markets, which is what we’re doing, like I said, in Africa. We’re also doing it in Mexico, and we’ll also likely do it in Venezuela. This is our goal to have an future incorporations of oil and gas reserves. In that regard, we think that the Mexican area of the Gulf of Mexico cannot be forgotten. A partnership with Pemex would be beneficial in order for us to assess new possibilities to operate and do new explorations in these areas.
The partnership with Pemex is also positive in terms of expanding synergies to use oil and gas that may start to be produced as the result of a partnership between Petrobras and Pemex. The Mexican Gulf of Mexico has mature fields. It’s not restricted to exploration opportunities alone. It also offers opportunities for us to make partnerships in the operation of mature fields. This is also another analysis that we’re going to undertake alongside Pemex. If that’s possible, what are we gonna do with this oil? Well, we are thinking about refining it in Mexico itself. If it’s being produced in Mexico and being refined in Mexico, and if we can use the gas surplus in Mexico, that’s the best-case scenario.
If we’re able to do that to the benefit of the synergies that are possible between exploration, production, and refining and the production of gas and gas processing in Mexico, that will be the icing on the cake of all of our efforts. What we have so far in Mexico are the best intentions. They have not yet become a reality though. Since you asked the reason for our trip, well, that was the reason. Those were the subjects that we discussed, the possibility to do exploration and production in Mexico, and the possibility to increase production in mature fields in Mexico. Possibly also using gas surplus and also a synergy with petrochemicals, which should also happen in Brazil. That’s what we’re working for in Brazil.
As a reminder, we have 46%-47% of the shares with the right to vote at Braskem, which is the sixth largest petrochemical plant in the world. As Petrobras, we are totally interested in being more present at Braskem and to make the most out of all synergies resulting from our manufacturing plants, whether in Brazil or abroad. The synergies, given that the synergies that are possible, to which achieved. We have a scheduled meeting that will occur on the thirteenth. A group in charge of refining will go to Mexico, and another group in charge of exploration and production will be arriving in Mexico on the thirteenth to keep having this conversation that was. Thank you, Magda. William is telling me that you asked about Odessa, if we’re gonna lose it?
Well, I can tell you that our intention is not to lose anything. We just wanna win and conquer new things. Our development phase is over. Now, as I used to say, we no longer like to sell. We only like buying and increasing our shares. Thank you, Magda. Thank you for your answer. Thank you for your question, Vicente. Now on to the next question from Gabriel Coelho Barra from Citi. Over to you, Gabriel. Thanks for taking my question. I’ll try to cover something that we didn’t touch upon about CapEx and production. I think the week before last, I don’t know if I’m wrong, but there was an event to talk about Búzios. We had the opportunity to talk about increased production in Búzios, not only in Búzios, but for the company as a whole.
Gabriel Coelho Barra, Analyst, Citi: Now, the oil scenario is much stronger than we had imagined during the company’s last investment plan. To paraphrase a few things that were touched upon during this conference call, the company’s been focusing on increasing production regionally. My question is, this plan that we’re currently following that was designed last year, how much of it can be modified? 79 just started in Búzios. The 80 will begin next year. What can we do in terms of increasing CapEx given this new oil scenario? Does anything change or does it not change? My question, to try to summarize it, is basically related to CapEx. What we should think about in terms of CapEx and if there should be an upside in terms of the numbers we’ve been working with given the new oil scenario.
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: Thanks, Gabriel. I’m going to ask Fernando to answer your question. Thanks for your question, Gabriel. Well, our focus, like we said, in our strategic planning is the same. We still see a very volatile Brent price. We do believe that these prices will increase between now and the end of the year. This will bring about additional revenues in the short term. The decision to include new investments do not involve only a short-term perspective. Rather, it’s a long-term perspective, and it involves identifying the resilience of the assets. Nothing has changed in terms of governance. It still has to undergo the technical assessments of strategic committees, the Executive Board. Depending on how much we’re investing, some of them need to be submitted to the Administrative Council of the company.
Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer/Investor Relations, Petrobras: We’ve just included SEAP with 22,000 million cubic meters. That’s the capacity that we’re talking about. They were not on our budget, and now we have included them on our budget. They were outside of our base CapEx, so we are evolving in that regard. There I mean, there could be others that have not yet been.
Bruno Montanari, Analyst, Goldman Sachs1: Analyzed, of course, it’s also a matter of opportunity. If we see that there is anything that we can invest in to increase the company’s value, we’ll do that. Of course, always focusing on the long term and not the short term. The cash surplus, certainly our main goal is to focus on investments. To anticipate it, we created a certain flexibility on our plan, stating that we could postpone investments, but that was based on the old scenario. Now we, if there are opportunities, we will bring things forward in terms of our 2030 plan. Well, just to add to what he said, we are in the waiting list for Búzios 12 or Albacora, which is something spectacular that can be done much more easily.
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: It’s already on our plan. The plan gives us this flexibility of having assets and absolutely irrelevant projects. It’s all about drive. This is our 2026-2030 strategic plan. Thank you, Fernando. Thank you, Sylvia. The next question will be asked by Tasso Vasconcellos from UBS. Go ahead. Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My question is a follow-up question to the last one, Fernando. Obviously, the company started the year with a certain plan. Maybe they were budgeting at around $60 per barrel, but now it’s a much more positive scenario in terms of cash generation. I know how difficult it is to predict oil prices, but at the same time, the company has its own internal plan with a course correction when necessary. You’ve talked about not passing on the price volatility to the consumer.
You yourself talked about investing or resuming investments in the Sergipe-Alagoas project. If you can tell us a little bit more about how much course correction you’ve been talking about, how frequently does the company talk about this or actually do it when necessary? What oil scenarios have you been working with for the second half of the year? Thank you. Thank you, Tasso. I’ll hand it over to Fernando, who will answer. Thank you for your question, Tasso. I’ll start with the end part of your question. The company has been getting prepared to work with a Brent balance of $59. This is what we foresee in the company regardless of our future Brent prices. We stated this in our strategic plan.
Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer/Investor Relations, Petrobras: We ran the company last year at around $81 for a balanced Brent, and we expect it to reduce until the end of 2030, to around $48 or $50, regardless of what happens. After that, we have prices. What if prices are higher? Our priority is to continue to invest. We can postpone or advance these investments, but this is all being analyzed within the company and our technical analysis, and we also are always looking at the long term, never the short term. This assumption will facilitate some things, but this is not the decision driver if we have to hedge the project. The second point is that we are directing additional resources that we might have this year to reduce our debt to converge towards $65 billion as quick as we can or even below it.
If we find any excess cash where we don’t have any profitable projects for, if we don’t have any opportunities that might be an alternative for investments, then our path will always be the same that we’ve always said. We don’t want to work with excess cash. Our minimum cash is BRL 6. We’re running the company with 8, 9, between BRL 8 billion and BRL 10 billion. If we find an excess that will not be missed in the future. In any case, our projects are always aiming at the next 20 to 30 years. If we don’t find any, then we would consider extraordinary dividends. We don’t believe there’s any possibility for that this year. Thank you, Fernando. Thank you, Tasso. The next question will be asked by Lilyanna Yang from HSBC. Hello, can you hear me? Yes, go ahead.
Lilyanna Yang, Analyst, HSBC: Thank you, Magda, Fernando. Thank you for this opportunity. I would like to get a little bit more color about your appetite for Mexico and Venezuela. If you can compare this with the equatorial margin. I’d just like to get an understanding if, for example, Venezuela and Mexico would be $1 billion or $5 billion in the next 2 years or the next 5 years. Thank you. Thank you, Lilyanna, I think you’re in a bit of a hurry. Like Sylvia said a short while ago, we are about 1,000 meters from our goal in the equatorial margin. That is our main goal, the first goal in our explorations. Beyond that, we also have efforts. Let me say it this way, we have much more concrete ongoing efforts on the Atlantic margin of Africa, for example.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: We’re talking about Côte d’Ivoire, Namibia, we’re talking about South Africa, maybe also Ghana. We have projects in Colombia, Peru. We’re focusing on South America and Africa. Along with that, we also discuss other opportunities. Notice that 10 years ago, we talked about the Golden Triangle, which was Africa, Brazil, and the Gulf of Mexico. The Mexican part of the Gulf of Mexico is relatively unexplored, naturally we would look at it and think what might happen there. So far, all we’ve done is visit the Mexican presidency. There’s still a long road ahead before we can quantify any kinds of investments in the Gulf of Mexico. I hope I can do it. I hope that Petrobras really has a good opportunity to work in the Mexican part of the Gulf of Mexico, this is still a wish list item.
Venezuela is a similar case. Venezuela has relevant resources found. They are our neighbor, naturally we would want to consider Venezuela. Right now, we still have it just as a wish list item. I still can’t look at Venezuela or Mexico to see any investment value because this is still an initial discussion. Thank you. We will now receive a question from Regis Cardoso from XP. Go ahead. Good morning, Eduardo. Thank you to the Petrobras team. If I can ask a specific question about Braskem. I think this is an important milestone from the recent shareholders agreement being signed, and as the company’s governance changed, Petrobras will have a much more active role over Braskem.
Regis Cardoso, Analyst, XP: This might be a crucial moment in which Braskem was moving towards a debt restructuring, at the same time, petrochemical spreads improved significantly since March. My question is, what changes with this new role for Petrobras? Does Braskem still require debt restructuring? Is there really a greater spread level? I’d just like to hear your take on these changes. Regis, what we have now is a willingness at Petrobras to work strongly on Braskem. If you look at the last 10 years, Petrobras was basically absent from Braskem. Our understanding is that this was not the right way. Braskem and Petrobras have very relevant synergies, especially with our refinement plants and the Brazilian gas consumption. Petrobras’ participation in Braskem is so relevant that it cannot be absent from this work, and we have to be strong like Petrobras usually is.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: This is what we’re saying. We want to be active participants in the Braskem operation, because if anyone understands about cracking here or this kind of work, it’s us. Of course, Petrobras can’t have this refinery infrastructure, this presence in Brazilian refinement and gas production and the share of the gas and byproducts market in Brazil, and let all of these discussions run at Braskem without Petrobras being included as a relevant partner. I think that’s what changed. It was just the company’s willingness to work with Braskem in a stronger way. I’ll let William and Angélica add to my answer. Just adding to that answer, it’s true. Since we joined the company, we had a mission of facing the issues of Braskem. First, we have the right political power vis-à-vis the economic capital that Petrobras had there.
Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer/Investor Relations, Petrobras: It took longer than we wanted. We had to experiment with several designs until we got to the current one with IG4 representing banks that hold shares. We created a shareholders agreement reflecting our intention, and we believe that that’s the best for the company. We’re going to focus on the operational issues. As we heard, we know their operation. We know the situation of the petrochemical industry. We’re very connected, and we have a lot of synergy between them and oil and gas. Right now, the company is in a transition. After signing the agreement, without the closing, we are already taking greater action. Not fully as we have set out in the shareholders agreement, but we’ve advanced significantly. As soon as the closing happens, this should take place.
This is expected for the next 30 to 90 days. This G4 will also be more active in the company, and all of the decisions will be made there with their structure. During the transitional period, we’re also going to assess and understand the best alternatives we have. Whenever we have a material fact from the company to Petrobras, we will assess it. I can say that we do not intend to consolidate debt. We will continue to be a minority in the company. All the decisions made within Petrobras will happen according to the best practices for what will be best for our shareholders, always following this concept of investments creating value for shareholders. Going into details about this management. We got an important position with G4.
We’re working in a joint manner assessing their operations, their logistics, their trade, the synergies that we have with our refineries. This is being assessed in work groups with the new IG4. This is expected for the next 30 to 60 days, but we are already doing this together. That’s very important because we have several issues that need to be discussed immediately because of the spread, which is very good with the war, and that will tend to be extended. The Middle East represents 25% of global petrochemical supplies. We know that they had issues because of the war, which is providing us with a better spread. This is a part of our discussion.
We’re speaking to Braskem about the working capital so that they can have the right working capital levels to really capture and monetize this excellent spread that will be longer. We’re doing this together, and our expectations are very positive. As Magda and Fernando said about Braskem, and as a reminder, highlighting what Fernando said, we will continue to have a stake of 46%. We don’t want to consolidate the debt. We want to be partners with Braskem, and that’s how it will be. We’re not going to let go of our percentage in Mexico. Thank you, Fernando. William. We’ll now hear a question from Rodolfo Angele from JPMorgan. Go ahead. Good afternoon, Magda and all of the directors and executives. My question is about the diesel and refinement market.
Rodolfo Angele, Analyst, JPMorgan: We can see that Petrobras is doing its part trying to supply the most it can to the market with refinery utilization reaching record levels. What do you think will happen in the future? What can you tell us about other levers to help supply the market with sporadic imports? Thank you. Hi, Rodolfo. This is Angélica. We frequently assess our plans and how we’re going to supply the market. We’re always looking at this from an economic perspective, but also from a physical perspective, how we’re doing, how much we’re producing. Right now, we have been producing well. This is not the highest seasonal moment for diesel, but right now we’ve produced enough volume to comply with our commitments. We believe that probably in the second half of the year, we will need to import diesel.
Angélica Laureano, Executive Logistics and Commercialization Director, Petrobras: In June already, in the second half of the year, without a doubt, we’ll require diesel imports since that’s usually when harvests happen and that has a higher demand. We had two stops. The war helped us with Brent, and it got us at a very favorable moment because we don’t have a lot of programmed downtime. That allowed us to raise the load above 100. We’re going to have one stoppage in Cubatão and one in Paraná at the end of the year. This will be in the middle of the second half of the year, and that also helped us to produce more. We’re producing an additional 100,000 barrels of diesel with this increase in the utilization factor and the expansion of RNEST.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: This is allowing us to reduce and eliminate any need for imports, which is very good. Just adding to that, there’s no diesel shortage in the market, even in the foreign market. If we need to import, we will do that without any trouble. It’s important to mention one thing. RNEST had a significant participation in the increased load. We’re going from 75,000 to 115,000 after the first engineering assessment. Magda went to CPRH, the environmental agency in Pernambuco, ANP. She spoke to the governor. We’re always being supported by our refinery engineers and our engineering director, so we were able to raise the load to 140,000, and we’re testing for 150,000 barrels a day. This was a refinery that was projected for a 115,000 and an additional 5,000.
We are currently at 150 in each train. We’re going from 230,000 to 300,000. This is a part of our self-sufficiency project for 2030.
To add to your response, it’s also important to say that the BRL 1.52 real subsidy that’s being proposed by the government is enough to let us import diesel and supply it to the Brazilian market. Importing without any losses, we have to highlight that. Petrobras is not incurring any losses when it comes to any type of action to avoid the volatility of prices for the Brazilian consumers. Petrobras is making profit, and we intend to continue to make profit. One thing that I must say is that the generation that preceded my generation used to love oil and gas. Now, I must say that our current generation, what we like is money. Please rest assured that what we like is money.
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: We do not want to simply make any social initiatives. Our social initiative is to provide more value to our brand. Thank you. Now let’s move forward to the last question. The last question comes from Bruno Montanari from Goldman Sachs. Over to you, Bruno.
Bruno Montanari, Analyst, Goldman Sachs: Thank you. Thanks for taking my question. I have a follow-up on Fernando’s comment that there will not be any extraordinary dividends this year. According to my calculations, the company’s cash flow should be above the dividends to be paid according to the policy. I’d just like to confirm if the priority will be given to reducing indebtedness, or with any additional cash flow, or if you see any extraordinary item in cash flow, such as the consumption of working capital that might produce the cash flow to something closer to the dividends defined by the policy.
Fernando Melgarejo, Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer/Investor Relations, Petrobras: Hi, Bruno. The first thing is that when there is an increase in the working capital, that will have an impact on the net cash flow, automatically, there’s an increase in the extraordinary dividends to all shareholders. 45% of what we see in terms of additional revenue will be made available through ordinary dividends. Our priority becomes investments, and that’s why we decided to have the base and target CapEx, so that we can securely add new funding projects there. We have already added a few, and if there are no additional projects for the period, the next item in the agenda would be to pay the debt so that we can converge towards $65 billion or less.
If we have already paid the debt, the investments this year are already adequate. As long as this has no negative impact on the next year, we do see the possibility of paying extraordinary dividends. That’s always been our line of thinking. That hasn’t changed. We don’t wanna operate the company with a cash flow that’s seen as an excessive cash flow. This year, the situation is still pretty cloudy to allow us to say that there will be a surplus that will allow us to pay extraordinary dividends. Right now, I can tell you that the possibilities are quite low so far. As Magda said, we’ve seen the Brent go from 110 to 90 overnight.
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: Twenty dollars of volatility over the course of one day does not make us feel secure enough to make any decisions to distribute dividends. We’d be happy to get to the end of the year with such a high amount of surplus that will allow us to distribute dividends. I cannot tell you that yet, that that will be the case. As I said, the situation’s pretty cloudy so far. We’ve been doing that during the construction of our strategic plan, we’re gonna revise it towards the end of the year. Thank you, Bruno, for the question, and thanks, Fernando, for your answer. I wanna thank everybody that participated, and I’d like to apologize to those of you that we could not answer on this occasion. This is the end of our Q&A session.
Magda Chambriard, Chief Executive Officer, Petrobras: If you have any additional questions, they can be answered through our investor relations team. I will now give the floor to President Magda. Please, President Magda, you have the floor. I want to thank everybody for patiently listening to us talk about the results of the first quarter and investments priorities for Petrobras. It’s very important that we can count on your trust in our operations. After all, it is this mutual trust. On the one side, Petrobras, that it has the interest of investors in mind, and investors, on the other hand, that their interests are taken into account. This is what moves us forward.
We can tell you that we’re gonna continue to deal with the company with a lot of capital discipline and compliance with all of our governance standards so that we can contribute to the growth of Petrobras in a way that’s secure and profitable, catering to the interests of our shareholders, be they governmental, private, or society in general. We are certain that we reached a great level during the first 76 years of Petrobras, and that we still have a lot to deliver and contribute to Brazil for the next 72 years of Petrobras’ existence. In order for that to happen, we need to be strong, thriving, with a consistent free cash flow. Petrobras is a strong cash generator. I don’t have to convince you of that. That’s something that you can see even before we can.
Eduardo, Moderator/Investor Relations, Petrobras: We keep on willing to deliver an increasingly strong Petrobras. Thank you all. Our doors are open. Our investor relations channels are always available. Eduardo is constantly available to all of you, as well as all of us. Thank you. Thank you, President Magda. Thanks, everybody. This presentation will be made available on our investor relations website, and we will also make the audio recording available. Thank you, and have a great day.