Petrobras sells unit for $5.2bn

BROOKFIELD Infrastructure Partners and clients of Brookfield Asset Management have agreed to buy a 90% stake in Nova Transportadora do Sudeste (NTS), a unit of Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (Petrobras).

A group led by Brookfield was buying the natural gas transmission assets in the southeast of Brazil for about $5.2bn, the company said in a statement on Friday.

Brookfield Infrastructure’s investment would be at least about 20% the transaction, or about $825m payable on closing, according to the statement. The remainder would be owned by institutional partners.

The deal was a unique opportunity to participate in a natural gas market that would grow substantially by 2030 as Brazil developed associated gas at giant offshore fields, Brookfield said.

NTS’s infrastructure supplied gas to Brazil’s most populated and industrialised states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais.

“We expect this business will contribute meaningfully to our results going forward,” Sam Pollock, CEO of Brookfield Infrastructure, said.

“We are very pleased to be significantly expanding our utilities business in a sector and geography that we know well and that we believe will offer opportunities to deploy further capital at attractive riskadjusted returns.”

Petrobras is at the centre of Brazil’s biggest corruption scandal and is struggling to recover billions invested in unprofitable refineries. It set a $15.1bn asset sale target for the two years to 2016 to reduce the heftiest debt load in the oil industry. After selling a mere $700m of assets in 2015, Petrobras has sped up negotiations since Pedro Parente took over as CEO in June.

Petrobras has also announced plans to sell liquefied natural gas terminals, onshore fields and petrochemical assets.

It set a $15.1bn asset sale target for the two years to 2016