Royal Dutch Shell has managed to acquire the approval of Brazil’s government to buy its BG rival in a USD 70-billion deal. The proposed acquisition is going to be the biggest since Exxon bought out Mobil oil back in 1998 and the merger between Shell Transport and Trading and Royal Dutch Petroleum in 2004.
The Brazilian Council for Economic Defense (CADE) decided to give its approval without any restrictions and if no appeals are made during the course of the following 15 days the acquisition is to become final. The deal is going to turn Shell into the biggest foreign operator regarding the market in Brazil. The Federal Trade Commission has O.K.-ed the acquisition but pre-conditional approvals are still pending from Australia, the European Union and China.
Back in May, Shell and BG accounted for producing a total of 212,252 BOE on a daily basis in Brazil, which served for roughly 7.1% of the total volumes of the country. According to experts the production of Shell is going to double and reach almost 500,000 by the year 2020. At the moment, BG is responsible for owning 25% of the Lula Field and Shell is respectively the operator of 20% of the Libra fields.
The deal at hand comes amid Brazilian government-run oil company Petrobras’ woes as it is involved in a massive corruption-related scandal and also has to deal with an enormous debt load and dropping oil prices. The scandal has resulted in 23 service companies having their payments frozen and receiving a ban to bid on the country’s future oil and gas projects. Brazil’s economy is reportedly going through the biggest recession in almost 25 years.