Stena, Partner Buy Samsung, Daewoo Tankers for Brazil

Stena Bulk AB, a Swedish shipping company, said it is ordering four tankers from Samsung Heavy Industries Co. for $268 million to ship crude from Brazil, home of the Americas’ biggest oil discovery in three decades. Two of the tanker orders were previously announced in January, and the option on another two will be exercised, Stena Chief Executive Officer Ulf Ryder said yesterday in an interview in Rio de Janeiro. Sonangol SA, Stena’s partner in Brazil, ordered five additional tankers from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., he said.
Stena is seeking to benefit as Brazil’s state-controlled producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA -- which Ryder says is Stena’s “biggest” client -- spends $174 billion over five years to boost output and develop offshore deposits. The orders are part of an effort by Stena and Sonangol, Angola’s state-run oil company, to increase their Brazil-based fleet to 25 from 15 now, Ryder said.
“Petrobras is the most aggressive oil company in the world today,” Ryder said. “Brazil is going to be the biggest in the world in offshore.”
Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras aims to more than double oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day by 2020 as it develops fields in the so-called pre-salt region, which sits off Brazil’s coast and holds oil deposits under a layer of salt. Petrobras said in 2007 that the Tupi field may have as much as 8 billion barrels of oil, the biggest discovery in the Americas since Mexico’s Cantarell in 1976.
Tanker Deliveries
Petrobras could not immediately comment on Stena’s fleet expansion in Brazil, said a spokeswoman, who could not be named because of company policy.
Samsung will deliver the four tankers to Stena in the first quarter of 2012, and Sonangol will receive its tankers in late 2011, Ryder said. All nine tankers have the capacity to ship about 1 million barrels each.
Stena picked the “best timing ever” when it ordered the tankers early this year after a global oversupply of vessels depressed prices, Ryder said.
“We have been very lucky,” he said. Separately, Samsung will also deliver a $1.14 billion drill ship in 2012 that will be used for oil exploration in the Arctic, Ryder said.
Samsung Heavy spokesman Yoon Jong Deuk said today that a deal for the remaining two tankers for Stena hasn’t been completed. Ahn Wook Hyun, a spokesman at Daewoo Shipbuilding, said nothing has been decided on any orders from Sonangol.
Tanker prices aren’t likely to fall further, Ryder said. Stena let its tanker rental contracts expire during the global financial crisis.
Rig Talks
Stena Drilling plans to bring more rigs to Brazil and is in talks with Petrobras to assemble a rig in the country with a combination of locally and foreign-made components. Stena’s DrillMAX offshore rig is currently in Brazil under a contract with Repsol YPF SA, according to Stena’s web site.
“We are in talks with Petrobras on a rig already, but they want local content,” Ryder said. “We have to see how to combine some foreign equipment with Brazilian content.”