Petrobras moving forward with downstream projects

Brazil’s national oil company Petrobras is moving forward with plans to expand investments in the downstream segment, including petrochemicals and refining. 

The state-run firm announced last Thursday an investment of 6bn reais (US$1.1bn) in the fertilizer segment over the next five years, including projects under study. 

Of the total, 870mn reais will go towards resuming activities at the Araucária Nitrogenados (Ansa) fertilizer plant in Paraná state. 

The plant is expected to start operating again in May 2025. Located next to the Presidente Artur Bernardes refinery (Repar), Ansa has capacity to produce 720,000t/y of urea, or 8% of the domestic market, along with 475,000t/y of ammonia and 450,000m3/y of liquid automotive reducing agent (Arla 32).

The plant is currently in the process of contracting services and acquiring materials, with local content expected to exceed 85%. Once this stage is complete, the service and equipment maintenance contracts will be activated to begin operations.

Petrobras also announced an investment of 3.2bn reais for maintenance and investment projects at Repar.

Among the projects is a new medium hydrotreating unit (HDT) to increase the production of S10 diesel, as well as energy efficiency improvement works. 

Repar's installed capacity is 33,000m3/d or 207,563b/d and its main products are diesel, gasoline, liquefied petroleum gas, coke, asphalt, fuel oils, aviation kerosene, propylene and marine oils.