Equinor, Petrobras Add 5 More Offshore Wind Projects to Their Partnership in Brazil

March 7, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

Petrobras and Equinor have signed a letter of intent that expands their cooperation in the offshore wind sector in Brazil to five more projects, on top of the two offshore wind farms that the companies are already working on.

With seven projects in their joint viewpoint, Petrobras and Equinor now together eye installing up to 14.5 GW of offshore wind capacity in Brazil.

Under the agreement the oil and gas majors signed this week, they will perform the technical, economic, and environmental feasibility studies for the seven offshore wind projects, which would then form a basis for any future investments into developing and building the wind farms.

Petrobras and Equinor first entered into an offshore wind partnership in Brazil back in 2018. This resulted in the two companies jointly exploring the opportunities to build two offshore wind farms with a combined capacity of 3.8 GW, located off Rio De Janeiro and Espírito Santo

A year ago, the partners announced they were evaluating the environmental feasibility of building the projects, named Aracatu I and II.

The new agreement will now facilitate an assessment of the viability of wind farms Mangara (on the coast of Piauí); Ibitucatu (coast of Ceará); Colibri (on the coastal border between Rio Grande do Norte and Ceará); besides Atobá and Ibituassu (both on the coast of Rio Grande do Sul), according to Equinor.

“This agreement will pave the way for a new frontier of clean and renewable energy in Brazil, taking advantage of our country’s significant offshore wind potential and boosting our trajectory towards the energy transition. We will combine our world-renowned offshore technological innovation capacity and our experience in the Brazilian electricity generation market with Equinor’s expertise in offshore wind projects in several countries”, said Petrobras president and CEO Jean Paul Prates.

“It is worth mentioning, however, that the phase is for studies and the allocation of investments depends on in-depth analyzes to assess their viability, in addition to regulatory advances that will allow the authorization processes for the activities, to be carried out by the Union”.

As reported in the Premium section on our sibling site Offshore Energy in 2022, Equinor has applied for environmental investigations for six developments in four Brazilian states, including the Aracatu projects, with a total of 14,370 MW under review.

Brazil’s Institute for the Environment and Natural Resources (IBAMA) has so far received 71 applications for environmental investigation licences for offshore wind projects, totalling 176.6 GW in proposed capacity.

A lot of the projects have been proposed by European developers, including oil and gas companies TotalEnergies and Shell, and Equinor, who filed applications for 15 projects totalling more than 40 GW.