Petrobras Buys Vale Fertilizer Plant for $234 Mln Reais

Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4), Latin America’s largest oil producer by market value, paid $234 million to acquire a fertilizer plant from Vale SA. (VALE5)

The 700,000 metric tons Araucaria Nitrogenados urea plant “complements the other Petrobras fertilizer assets,” Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras said in a statement yesterday. The deal needs regulatory approval, it said.

The acquisition comes after Petrobras reported a 12 percent drop in third-quarter profit and its first quarterly loss in 13 years in the second-quarter. Vale, the world’s largest iron-ore producer, is cutting investments, suspending projects and selling assets as demand wanes in China and Europe, the company’s two biggest markets.

Vale expects to announce the sale of some of its oil and gas assets in the coming weeks, Chief Executive Officer Murilo Ferreira told reporters in London after an investors’ presentation on Dec. 6. The company will likely announce the sale of a stake in its general cargo VLI unit in the first two months of 2013, he said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Rodrigo Orihuela in Rio de Janeiro at rorihuela@bloomberg.net; Juan Pablo Spinetto in Rio de Janeiro at jspinetto@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net