Brazil Opec discussion delayed to next week: minister

Brazil's mines and energy minister Bento Albuquerque told Argus that his meeting with President Jair Bolsonaro to discuss the possibility of joining Opec has been postponed until next week at the earliest.

Bolsonaro said on 1 November that Brazil had received an invitation to join the oil producers' group from an unnamed Middle East country. Albuquerque subsequently said he would meet with Bolsonaro this week to discuss the matter. On the way out of today's Transfer of Rights (TOR) auction, the minister said he thought the meeting would not happen before next week.

Last month, Bolsonaro told an audience at the Future Investment Initiative Forum in Riyadh that he would be open to joining the organization, but would need to consult with his advisers before taking any decision.

Government officials speaking on the sidelines of the TOR auction downplayed any negative impact from the president's comments on today's bidding round, where only two of four assets were sold, and a sixth production-sharing round planned for tomorrow.

"It's just an invitation. Something we have to consider," a high-level government official told Argus.

As a rising non-Opec crude supplier, Brazil would add significant weight to the Saudi-led group. But membership would also create challenges for upstream growth in a country where there is an increasing diversity of producers aside from Brazilian state-controlled Petrobras.

The president's pro-market finance minister Paulo Guedes has said Brazil could participate in high-level Opec meetings, but would not participate in efforts to manage the oil price through supply quotas.

In the past, representatives from Brazil's mines and energy ministry have sat in on high-level Opec and non-Opec meetings. But the ministry has said that under Brazilian law and contracts, the federal government — the controlling shareholder of Petrobras — cannot interfere with the production of contracted companies.