Petrobras will continue selling Brazilian crudes in Asia through its offices in Singapore and Beijing, even after it ceased to be a registered oil products importer in Japan, the company told Platts Monday.
Petrobras has stopped selling Brazilian crudes using leased storage tanks at the 100,000 b/d Nishihara refinery in Okinawa, which is operated by its wholly owned subsidiary Nansei Sekiyu, as it estimates it would be "more profitable" to sell the crudes via VLCCs directly from Brazil, the company said in an email statement.
Petrobras said its customers in Asia accounted for roughly 36% of its total crude exports in 2011 as buyers in China and India had capacity to take the large volumes on VLCCs.
In May 2010, Petrobras received its maiden 900,000-barrel cargo of Roncador 28 crude at its Nishihara refinery via a Suezmax vessel Ataulfo Alves. But the company did not store any more Brazilian crudes at its leased tanks for marketing, the company added.
Last month, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry approved a request from Petrobras for it to be removed from the list of registered oil importing companies.
Petrobras had filed the request on February 28, after its two-year lease for the use of three oil storage tanks at the Nishihara refinery expired in end December last year, a METI official said April 2.
The three tanks each have a storage capacity of 100,000 kiloliters (629,000 barrels).
Nansei Sekiyu, meanwhile, does not plan to lease its three oil storage tanks to other companies but will keep them for its own use after running maintenance programs, Petrobras said.
Nansei Sekiyu's status as a registered oil refinery in Japan remains unchanged, the METI official said.
Nansei Sekiyu said April 4 that it achieved record production of 92,000 b/d on March 30, the highest processing volume since Petrobras bought a majority stake in the plant April 2008. the refinery's sole 100,000 b/d crude distillation unit is shut over April 2-28 for scheduled maintenance.
Nishihara became Japan's only wholly foreign-owned refiner last year, after Petrobras took over Sumitomo's 12.5% stake in Nansei Sekiyu in October.
It originally bought an 87.5% stake in the refinery from ExxonMobil's Japanese refining arm, TonenGeneral, for $55 million in April 2008.
