Brazil’s Agriculture Minister Carlos Fávaro is understood this week to have said state-owned oil and gas major Petróleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) will “resume construction” of three fertilizer plants, Brazil’s O Globo newspaper reported. However, it is not clear which of Petrobras’ four fertilizer plants, including the still-to-be completed Nitrogen Fertilizer Unit-III (UFN-III) project, in Três Lagoas, in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, the minister was referring to.
The minister’s comments come amid the country’s newly inaugurated government under President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva signalling its desire for Petrobras to play a broader role in the development of various public policies in Brazil, including fertilizer investments (GM Jan. 13, p. 31).
Petrobras in December halted the competitive procedure for the sale of its wholly-owned nitrogen fertilizer plant, Araucãria Nitrogenados, known as ANSA, in the southern Brazilian state of Paraná (GM Dec. 23, 2022).
A banamericas report at the time, citing a researcher at Brazilian petroleum research institute Ineep, Henrique Jäger, reported Petrobras’ decision to halt the ANSA sale, as well as of certain other key downstream assets, was due to the new president-to-be’s belief in the strategic importance for the country’s energy sector that Petrobras remain an integrated upstream-and-downstream company with a major presence in the refining, natural gas, and petrochemical sectors, while also investing in alternative energy sources (GM Dec. 23, 2022).