Brazilian state-run oil and gas company Petrobras has announced plans to cut its operational expenditure (OPEX) by US$8.1bn in the period from 2019 through 2023 in order to improve its financial situation. Besides, it also confirms the expansion of its asset divestment programme, which is set to entail more mature and shallow waters oil and gas fields for the upstream part. It will also include additional midstream and downstream assets.
Petrobras needs to sell non-core assets in order to reduce its massive net debt of US$73bn (as of January 2019). Over the 2016-2018 period, Petrobras divested assets worth US$20bn and could sell another US$20bn worth of assets through 2019. However, the entire privatisation of the company has been ruled out by the government so far.
In 2018, the company's total oil and gas output, including natural gas liquids (NGL), stood at 2.6 mboe/d in 2018, split between 2.5 mboe/d produced in Brazil and 0.1 mboe/d abroad. More specifically, crude oil production in Brazil reached 2 mb/d. The pre-salt production continued to develop and achieved new records in 2018 at 1.75 mboe/d in average and even 1.85 mboe/d in December 2018.