(Bloomberg) — Brazil President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he spoke with Mexican leader Claudia Sheinbaum about a possible exploration partnership between their nations’ state-run oil companies in the Gulf of Mexico.
Speaking at event on Friday, he said he’d called at the request of Magda Chambriard, the head of Petroleo Brasileiro SA, to suggest that it work with Petroleos Mexicanos.
“Did you know Pemex could receive significant help from Petrobras to explore for oil together in the Gulf of Mexico, at a depth of 2,500 meters?” Lula said he asked Sheinbaum, without providing any additional details about the call or a potential partnership.
Petrobras didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company, a specialist in deep-water operations that has been looking to expand abroad to increase output and replenish its oil and gas reserves, doesn’t have any current operations in Mexico.
Sheinbaum’s office, Pemex and Mexico’s energy ministry didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Mexican president has been seeking private partners to help Pemex boost production and revive sagging oil output that has slumped to half its peak from two decades ago. Few major international companies, besides billionaire Carlos Slim’s Grupo Carso, have stepped forward to announce projects.
During the event, Lula also suggested that Brazil and Petrobras should consider building a strategic oil reserve similar to those that the US, China and other nations maintain to hold emergency stockpiles and ease disruptions. The comments came amid rising oil prices due to the US war in Iran, which have put pressure on Petrobras and Brazil’s government domestically.
“It’s not a quick thing, it takes time, but it’s a strategic thing that Petrobras and the government have to think about,” Lula said. “We need, over time, to build a regulatory stockpile so that we don’t become victims of what is happening today.”
The leftist leader said Petrobras would attempt to repurchase a refinery in the state of Bahia that the company sold to Mubadala Capital, an asset management arm of Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, in 2021.
Lula has been critical of the sale of the Mataripe refinery that occurred under his predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro.
“We will buy it back,” Lula said. “It may take awhile, but we’ll buy it.”
–With assistance from Scott Squires and Gonzalo Soto.
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