Half the Cargoes Go Unsold at Pre-Sal Petroleo's 8th Spot Crude Auction

Four of the eight lots offered at the 8th spot crude auction run by Pre-Sal Petroleo (PPSA) found no buyer and will be re-offered in September, all of them carrying cargoes from the Buzios field. TotalEnergies and Petrobras took the four lots that did clear, in the sale held on Wednesday the 26th.

The eight lots on offer covered cargoes from the Buzios and Atapu fields. TotalEnergies won lots 1, 2 and 7; Petrobras won lot 4. According to PPSA, every lot taken by TotalEnergies relates to Buzios production.

Lot 1 is a single cargo of 1 million barrels from the FPSO Almirante Tamandare, with loading scheduled between October and December 2026. Lot 2 carries the same 1 million barrel volume, sourced instead from the FPSO Almirante Barroso, with loading over the same window.

Lot 7 is the largest of the awarded parcels: two cargoes of 1 million barrels each from the P-78 and P-79 platforms, with loading set for November to December 2026.

Petrobras took the only Atapu barrels sold. Lot 4 is a cargo of 900,000 barrels from Atapu, produced by the P-70, with loading expected in early November.

PPSA said in a note that lot volumes were changed from what was initially announced because of logistics on the FPSOs.

Price bids were referenced to dated Brent and opened in real time during a meeting attended by representatives of the bidding companies, the company said. PPSA is the state company that represents the Union in production-sharing contracts.

The structure of the sale matters for how the barrels reach the market. Because the offers were priced off dated Brent rather than a fixed level, bidders competed on the differential to the benchmark, leaving the unsold Buzios lots to be tested again in September under whatever differential the market supports then. The volumes involved are not marginal for a single sale: the three lots won by TotalEnergies alone account for four cargoes of 1 million barrels each.

Concentration was equally notable on the buy side. Two companies took all four awarded lots, with no third name among the winners. Petrobras, which operates in the same production-sharing framework PPSA administers on behalf of the Union, secured the single Atapu parcel while the Buzios grades went to TotalEnergies.

The re-offer in September will put the same Buzios cargoes back in front of buyers, keeping four lots of the original eight in play. PPSA's note on FPSO logistics indicates the parcel sizes brought to auction were not fixed at the point of announcement, a variable that sits alongside price in how bidders assess each lot.