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PBR.A (PBR.A)

Q1 2023 Earnings Call· Fri, May 12, 2023

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Transcript

Carla Albano

Management

Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to Petrobras Webcast with Analysts and Investors about the First Quarter 2023 Results. It's great to have you join us today. We'd like to inform you that all participants will follow the transmission by Internet as listeners. After an introduction, a Q&A session will begin. You can send us questions by e-mail at petroinvest@petrobras.com.br. Today, we have with us Anna Paula Zettel, Upstream Executive Manager representing the Chief Exploration and Production Officer, Joelson Mendes; Carlos Travassos, Chief Engineering, Technology & Innovation Officer; Clarice Coppetti, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer; Claudio Schlosser, Chief Logistics, Commercialization & Markets Officer; Mario Spinelli, Chief Governance & Compliance Officer; Mauricio Tolmasquim, Chief Energy Transition & Sustainability Officer; Sergio Caetano Leite, Chief Financial Officer & Investor Relations Officer; and William França, Chief Industrial Processes & Product Officer. To begin, we will watch a message from our CEO, Jean Paul Prates.

Jean Paul Prates

CEO

Dear investors, as we open this event to discuss our results, I believe it is of the utmost importance to talk about the future of Petrobras and the perspectives opened up by yet another quarter of solid operational and financial performance, the first under this new management team. In these first 100 days, we focused our efforts on reorganizing the company structure, preparing Petrobras for the future, especially to lead the just energy transition. We continue to reach production records in the pre-salt, and to increase the efficiency of our refineries. Our operating cash generation remains consistent and our debt reached the lowest level since 2010. We have solid fundamentals, which underpin our plan to diversify our investments to strengthen Petrobras as an integrated, robust and long living energy company. We will always pursue returns on investments and reductions in the cost of capital, maximizing the company's value and seeking to develop the Brazilian market with sustainability. Total attention to people is our nonnegotiable priority, because only a skilled and diverse technical staff will allow us to meet the dynamic demands of the market, especially the energy transition. The investment in profitable exploration and production assets and in adjusting the refining facilities to the Brazilian markets demands our natural movements to ensure the energy supply that society needs. We will continue our efforts to decarbonize our production processes and to develop greener products, which we understand to be the only way looking forward for the oil and gas industry, reducing its emissions and consolidating clean energy alternatives. In fact, we are convinced that Brazil and Petrobras have all the conditions to be global leaders in a fair energy transition without ceasing to be an oil power, establishing partnerships with other companies and taking advantage of the different vocations and potentialities of all Brazil's regions. We will build this route alongside our partners. This is our path going forward. We make decisions always reconciling our social function and respect for our governance, honoring the trust placed in our company by our shareholders. This is my greatest commitment, as well as that of the entire Executive Board, which I represent. Thank you very much to all of you.

Carla Albano

Management

Thank you. Now I'd like to pass the floor to Petrobras CFO, Sergio Caetano Leite. That will begin our webcast presentations of the first quarter 2023 results. Please Sergio, go ahead.

Sergio Caetano Leite

CFO

Hello, everyone. Good morning. I'm very happy to be here reviewing today my first quarter results webcast, and even happier to talk about the important and solid performance that Petrobras delivered in the first quarter of 2023. We had very strong quarter from an operational and financial perspective and I will take a moment to highlight several important deliveries. First, from an operational angle, pre-salt production set a new monthly record in February 2023, and a quarterly record, reaching 77% of our total production. In February, we also had a monthly production record at the FPSO Guanabara in the Mero field whose average oil production reached 179,000 barrels per day. We made the first injection of gas at the P-71 with continuing its ramp up in the Itapu field in Santos Basin pre-salt. The production of diesel gasoline and jet fuel in the first quarter of 2023 reached 67% of total production, 1 percentage point higher than the first quarter of 2022. We also set production records for 10 PPM diesel at REPAR and REGAP refineries in January and the REPLAN refinery in March. We advanced in development of more sustainable and efficient products with the certification of Diesel R at the REPAR. The launch of new premier gasoline, the exclusive commercialization of fuel oil with a maximum of 1% sulfur content in the domestic market and with the beginning of trade of Ultra Low Sulfur Marine Gas Oil. Here it's important point out that we have recently undergone the organization adjustment to prepare the company for the future by creating the energy transition and sustainability executive option. Any match we carry out the remain procurement to resume the works of the natural gas processing needs of the integrated project Route 3 in the GASLUB cluster in Itaboraí, which is…

Carla Albano

Management

Thank you, Sergio. Now, I'll pass the floor to Chief Energy Transition and Sustainability Officer, Mauricio Tolmasquim. Mauricio Tolmasquim, go ahead.

Mauricio Tolmasquim

Management

Hi, good afternoon. It's a great satisfaction that I'm here today as the first Chief Energy Transition and Sustainability Officer in Petrobras' history to present to the market the excellent results obtained off the first quarter of '23. Please next slide. As we can see in the graphs, we remain aligned with our sustainability commitments with carbon intensity levels below 2022. The carbon intensity in our Exploration and Production operation reached 14.7 kilograms of CO2 by barrel in the first quarter of '23, is the first figure out. This level is lower than that achieved in 2022 and this is the result of our continuous effort to reduce emissions from our operations. We have reinforced the competitiveness of pre-salt oilfields which represent an increasingly relevant percentage of the company's total production. Why this is important? This is important because the initial intensity from the pre-salt field is lower than the other fields. For example, if you look Tupi and Búzios fields, both had emissions of 10.6 and 9.3 CO2 per barrel, respectively. So, these figures are well below the national and international emission intensity. When we look to the next graph, at the refining indicator, you can see a continuous reduction in carbon intensity tool. This improvement is associated with increased energy efficiency through for instance, the reduction of gases sent to the torch and process virtualization. Finally, look, the third graph, I would like to highlight the decrease in carbon intensity from thermal power generation. There are two explanations for this reduction in the carbon intensity. First, the improvement of the thermal power plants itself; and second, the reduction of the dispatch of thermal power plants, reducing the dispatch of the less efficient plants. Next slide please. So now let's take a look to the absolute emissions. In terms…

Carla Albano

Management

Thank you, Tolmasquim. Now, we'll continue with Carlos Travassos, Chief Engineering, Technology & Innovation Officer to present the E&P results.

Carlos Travassos

Management

Thank you very much, Carla. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Carlos Travassos, Engineering, Technology and Innovation Chief Officer. Today I will present both the results of Exploration and Production and Engineering, Technology and Innovation. Joelson Mendes was -- underwent a minor surgery and he will not be able to be here with us, he is fine. And by next week, he is going to be back. Well, let's start with the next slide. So, you can see here that we have reached 2% growth on the operative production in comparison with the first quarter '22. We achieved 3.74 million barrels a day, what I mean by barrels, I am talking about equivalent agents here, yes. So we can see growth comparing with the last quarter of '22 and then also 2.3% if we compare with the first quarter of the last year as well. If you take a look in oil and gas and our oil production, again, we had a growth compared with the last quarter. This growth was mainly due to ramp up of P-71 and for entry of eight wells in Campos Basin and also improvement in our efficiency. Going to the right, if you take a look in pre-salt, our own production. And we can see that increasing of the share of pre-salt in our total production. We achieved in this quarter 77% of pre-salt production as a share of our total production. Now we can go to the next please. And now we're talking about some achievements, important achievements. Actually we have broken some records, we've broken a monthly record 2.13 million barrels a day that was taking place in February and actually a quarterly record with 2.05 million barrels. And if you take a look in individual production as well, we have an amazing result…

Carla Albano

Management

Thank you, Travassos. Now I will pass the floor to William França, Chief Industrial Process & Product Officer. William, go ahead. William França: Good afternoon for everyone. It’s a pleasure to stay here and to present the highlights of refining segment in the first quarter of '23. And I'm so happy to be in charge of our refineries in the oil and gas plants. In the first quarter of '23 -- I'm sorry, we are going to prioritize two indication on this presentation, okay: utilization factor refineries; and operation availability. In the first quarter, the utilization factor in our refineries was 85%, I think that is an important and excellent result considering that we had three big turnarounds during this period in REFAP, REVAP and RPBC. We spend almost R$1.2 billion by maintaining more than 800 larger equipments, like you had changes, pipelines, pumps, towers and reactors. And we had more than 10,000 collaborators contributed and performed in this big challenge, helping us. In April, we had our utilization factor of 29%. In that beginning of May, we are performing above 90%. Regarding the operational availability, in the first quarter of '23 we obtained a result above 96%, which most of our refiners achieved the level of the best refineries including the companies of United States, okay? Thank you for your concentration. Have a nice day.

Operator

Operator

Thank you, William. Now I'll call Claudio Schlosser, Chief Logistics, Commercialization and Markets Officer. Schlosser, go ahead.

Claudio Schlosser

Management

Yes, thank you. Hello, everybody. It's a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about our first quarter '23 results. Next slide please. On this slide, we'll talk about the oil product sales. As you can see, there was a reduction in sales of oil products in the domestic market, dropped 5% compared with the previous similar quarter. This was already expected, as diesel and gasoline seasonally have a weaker consumption in the first quarter of the year. It is important to see that in this quarterly composition, there is still the impact of divestment of REMAN, REMAN we had to cool in at the end of the last year. Even so, it is important to highlight that gasoline sales were the highest versus that the first quarter in the last six years, driven by the greater competitiveness of gasoline in relation to ethanol. Regarding the foreign markets, the drop of fuel oil export was caused by lower production due to the scattered shutdowns of some of our biggest refineries, as mentioned by Director William. Typically the topic of the product sales, I will like to take the opportunity to bring for us our focus on the market. Retail market has even become part of the name of this world. That's why I want to highlight the startup of the new diesel and gasoline sales center in November in Almirante Barroso, Búzios. This action constraints our presence in the Midwest and enables the practice of specific commercial action in the region. This is a very important milestone that guarantees Petrobras' presence in the region that should grow the most in the coming years. Next slide, we will talk about oil exports flow. As you can see in this slide, talking about oil exports, our main destination remains China.…

A - Carla Albano

Management

Thank you, Schlosser. Thank you all, we can move on to our Q&A session. And the first question that we received comes from Bruno Amorim with Goldman Sachs and it's for Sergio. Sergio, Petrobras CapEx is poised to grow in the next few years under the current and possibly the new strategic plan to be announced, what is the comfortable level of cash position the company should target, more, less or in line with the prior management target of $8 billion?

Sergio Caetano Leite

CFO

Thank you, Bruno, for your question. I believe that the levels set up in the current business are very prudent. I think we must keep solid parameters in terms of liquidity and leverage. We wanted to always keep robust financial health territory, which allow us to face inevitable downcycles in oil prices. Also, we need to be sure that our investments will be self-funded with our operational cash flow, nonetheless, allowing to emphasize that the execution of the new business plan may result in a revision of the current targets. Than you, Bruno.

Carla Albano

Management

Thank you, Sergio. The next question comes from Vicente Falanga with Bradesco BBI. And it's for Travassos. Travassos, the company recently announced the delay in the startup of some platforms. What was the major cause of that?

Carlos Travassos

Management

Thank you very much for your question. That's a very good question. Actually, we have in that -- actually it's a minor adjustment on the schedule. Despite of we see the shift from one year to another year, yes, we are talking about minor change, and then maybe due to some perception of our risk analysis, and these perceptions is regarded for the supply chain markets, both for top sides and also for subsea. But just for information, if you take a look at into an IPB, that's we're talking about 13 days of shifts, yes, not too much. Of course, when you see a shift probably one year to another year, seems that you have a big change yes. But here we're not talking about a big change. But Petrobras, all the time that we are having a change, that appears in our business plans, we are very transparent, and it's important to show up and analyze to the market, yes. But this change does not bring any impact on our production curve, okay? Thank you very much for your question.

Carla Albano

Management

Thank you, Travassos. The next question comes from Luiz Carvalho with UBS. And it's for Tolmasquim. Tolmasquim, we are seeing a series of comments regarding the company's focus in the future, particularly with diversification of investments focused on energy transition. Could you list some potential investments options, how fast the investment portfolio could be built? This portfolio could be made through organic investments or potential acquisitions? Will the company pursue assets in petrochemicals, renewable power generation, offshore wind, fertilizers, biofuels, fuel distribution, new refiners, or some other sector? In your view, is there any target on how much this could represent from future investment plans?

Mauricio Tolmasquim

Management

Thank you very much, Luiz. Well, in fact, we are planning to diversify our investment regarding renewables. Let's say, we are talking about the investing in offshore wind, green hydrogen, CCUS and other possibilities. We're still doing our strategic plan for the next cycle. So this strategic plan that we are being able to understand to know which technology we are going to invest. What costs? The investment can be, let's say, through costs -- organic investments, but it's not just got the possibility to make some acquisition out. So our preference for organic investments. We want to do this mainly with partnership with other companies, I think is the best way to do new investments, and mainly with big companies. And in terms of target about future investment plans, we don't have yet the targets, because as I have said, the strategic plan is being doing, but I could say that we are going to do this with derisked financial responsibility. The idea is that it's possible to do some diversification, but maintaining our financial indicators.

Carla Albano

Management

The next question also from Luiz Carvalho with UBS is for Schlosser. Schlosser, the company's current fuel price policy considers international price and import costs. What parameters could be used in a possible new policy? Is exports parity for the domestically produced products an option? Does the company considers holding lower margins on the domestically produced products in order to reduce price pressure for the final consumer?

Claudio Schlosser

Management

Thanks for your question, Luiz. First, I would like to take the opportunity to comment that although the current price policy is using a lot, what is up to Petrobras is to elaborate its commercial strategy. That being said, the import parity is a reference to the cost of our importing competitors. But it doesn't have to be the only reference for Petrobras. We have other opportunities that we can explore through our installed refinery capacity, logistics integration [with all the shine] and operational efficiency that allows us to compete efficiently, preserving the company's valued innovation. That is there -- that's the answer. Back to you, Carla.

Carla Albano

Operator

Thank you, Schlosser. The next question comes from Monique Greco with Itaú BBA. She sent us a message. Thank you for the opportunity for addressing our questions. On behalf of Itaú, I'd like to wish the new Executive Board good luck in this new phase. The first question from Monique is to Spinelli. Could you comment on the challenge you expect to encounter in your new position? And if possible, share some outlook plans and ideas to be implemented during your term.

Mario Spinelli

Analyst

Hi, Monique. Thanks for your question. First of all, I consider that's important to point out that we already had a very robust integrity…

Carla Albano

Operator

Spinelli, you have to turn on the camera. Sorry.

Mario Spinelli

Analyst

Turn on. Is it working, Carla? Can you see?

Carla Albano

Operator

Now I can see. Thanks.

Mario Spinelli

Analyst

Okay. And so first of all, I think that we must consider that we have a very robust integrity and governance system. But that doesn't mean that there isn't anything to do. Quite the contrary. What we need to do is now to enhance this system, so that it becomes more sustainable and totally aligned with our business. And there are important aspects related to improving our performance that can be considered, such as our strategy to prevent and combat harassment, it's just an example. This is an important point for us, and we will include it. Moreover, some technology tools can be incorporated into our compliance actions, making them more efficient and agile. We will enhance our compliance risk management, also focusing on issues that may represent risks of damage to the company's strategic objectives. And with this, we will be able to identify the most exposed areas and work in a preventive way. But the point that I consider most important is that we need to ensure that our integrity program is strong and responsive enough to protect our assets, to protect the company, and at the same time, to ensure efficiency, respecting all the rules and focusing on people. I think that's it. Thank you, Monique.

Carla Albano

Operator

Thank you, Spinelli. The next question from Monique is to William. William, despites the refinery maintenance carry out in the recent quarters, the company has managed to maintain high levels of refinery utilization rates. In this regard, is there still room to increase the current utilization levels? What would be the desired level of refinery utilization for the refining park as a whole? William França: Hi, Monique. Thank you for a good question for us. The answer is, yes. We have got conditions to increase our refinery utilization because of two reasons. Okay? First one, we're performing and operating our refiners and we have an excellent reliability. So important to remain in this kind of this one. And the second one, the second point is because we won't have got big turnarounds for the next month and through the end of the year. Then I think that we have who have good rules to increase our utilization for the next month above 90% in order to get to market opportunities, okay? But the goal is to maximize our production and the quality of our operations, by respecting all of the aspects of safety, environment, health, any integrity, okay? Thank you for your question, Monique.

Carla Albano

Operator

Thank you, William. And the next question is about E&P and I'll call Anna Paula Zettel. Anna Paula, regarding the equatorial margin, could you comment on the company's expectation regarding the approvals at IBAMA? If the regulatory agency president follows the negative opinion presented by the technical area earlier this month, could you discuss the medium long-term alternatives for the company to continue increase its production figures?

Anna Paula Zettel

Analyst

Thank you, Carla. Thank you, Monique, for your question. Well, Petrobras is awaiting for IBAMA positions on the preoperational assessment. This is an exercise to evaluate the company response capacity in an unlikely accident event. So it's part of the process and we are pursuing that authorization to the next steps of the permitting process. We are following strictly the requirements of IBAMA. And there are no pending issues from Petrobras. All the resources are in the locations waiting for IBAMA's authorization. So we understand that the activity in the region is very safe. That's the reason we have planned $3 billion to drill 16 wells in the equatorial margin. But we also have investments plan in exploratory phase, and we are monitoring closely all opportunities abroad. That's part of our strategy to build up our reserves and to manage our portfolio. So thank you very much, Monique, again.

Carla Albano

Operator

Thank you, Anna Paula. The next question comes from Gabriel Barra with Citi and it's for Mauricio Tolmasquim. Tolmasquim, could the managers give us more information, return levels, time for construction on offshore wind farms, projects being studied together with ethanol?

Mauricio Tolmasquim

Management

Well, thank you for the question. Until the moment we have only let's say a Memorandum of Understanding and some projects, some areas that we apply to environmental license at the IBAMA. But let's say we are waiting for the establishment of the regulatory framework to start studying specific projects. So at the moment we don't have any figures about investments, timeframe and so on. I believe that means not sure of time of -- we are going to have this kind of formation. Thank you.

Carla Albano

Operator

Thank you, Tolmasquim Thank you all. At this time, the Q&A session is over. If you have any further questions, you can send to our Investor Relations team. I'd like to thank you all for your attention. It's very important quarter with a solid result from operation and financial point of view. Thank you all and have a great day.