HOUSTON – The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Pratessaid that the sinking of the ground in Maceió around the operations of the Braskem should not be an obstacle to the sale of the company’s share Novonor (former Odebrecht) in the company.
“It has an environmental liability (in Maceió) that the buyer must understand. It’s not scary enough to prevent the sale of a petrochemical complex. Within the Braskem conglomerate, this should not be a factor capable of deterring pragmatic proposals for the asset”, he said, citing units abroad, such as Mexico and Germany.
Behind the scenes, the environmental issue in Maceió has been pointed out as one of the factors behind the withdrawal of Adnoc, from the United Arab Emirates, from the negotiations, announced on Monday, 6. There would be fears regarding the size of the compensation costs.
In November, Adnoc had presented a non-binding offer for Novonor’s stake in Braskem that implied a price per share of R$37.29, totaling a value of R$10.5 billion.
Braskem caused an environmental disaster in Maceió; entire neighborhoods in the capital of Alagoas had to be abandoned Photograph: Daniel Teixeira / AE
New proposals
Prates minimized the departure of the Adnoc group from the negotiations. According to him, new proposals will come to purchase the stake in the petrochemical company. Petrobras has 36.1% of Braskem’s total capital and is closely monitoring the sale process of its partner’s share, 38.3%.
Alongside Prates, the Financial Director of Petrobras, Sergio Caetano Leite, recalled that there were at least two companies involved in the process, and one of them, the Kuwaiti PIC, remains in the running, not to mention companies that may not be in the habit of making proposals not binding.
Petrobras executives spoke to journalists in Houston, United States, on the occasion of the Offshore Technology Conference, the OTC, the largest event in the oil and gas sector in the world. “There is no proposal, but there are people looking. New proposals will come to Braskem,” said Prates.
He also recalled that this is not a trivial process, because the negotiations are not public, with stipulated deadlines and the seller (Novonor) has debts with creditor banks that participate in the negotiation. “The buyer has to enter into a series of procedures, interactions, which is different from going to the supermarket”, he compared.
For his part, Caetano Leite said that Braskem has attracted “first-rate” companies in the world and stated that Adnoc’s retreat in relation to Braskem means that the company is “out of Petrobras’ petrochemical game in the future”.
“There are companies that continue to do due diligence and do not send non-binding proposals, they send the final proposal directly. There are different styles of approach”, he stated, remembering that Adnoc only had a non-binding proposal, continued Leite.
Tags: Prates environmental problem frightening prevent sale Braskems stake
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