Petroleo Brasileiro Petrobras ADR

This is our first report on Brazilian energy major, Petrobras. The company had a disappointing quarter and failed to meet Wall Street expectations in terms of revenues as well as earnings. Petrobras is focused on reducing its carbon footprint and the management recently highlighted the living forest initiative, which is the initiative to match funds from the Brazilian Development Bank to capture 9 million tons of carbon and restore 33,000 acres. The company is investing $50 million over a 5 year time frame. In the quarter, looking at the emissions in the quarter, it is viewed that both in the downstream and upstream segments, the results of the company were quite solid. The refineries are part of the company’s RefTOP program, which is focused on the energy intensity in the group of refineries that is performing quite well. In terms of carbon capture, Petrobras has the largest carbon capture program that offshores the bored. It continues to deliver robust results in this sense. Also, it had the starting of a production-sharing contract for Sepia and Atapu impacting the production of the quarter. Yara International is close to acquiring the fertilizer unit that is put on sale by Petrobras. The company’s executive board approved the ending of the process of the sale of the Albacora oil field. We initiate coverage on the stock of Petrobras with a ‘Hold’ rating.