MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazil's state-led oil company Petrobras is close to selling its stake in Brazilian petrochemicals producer Braskem, Latin America's largest petrochemical producer, and expects to complete the sale by the end of June, a Petrobras source told news agency Reuters.
Petrobras has received interest from major international chemical companies for its 36% stake in Braskem's total capital, according to the Reuters report.
Petrobras owns 47% of Braskem's common shares and 21.8% of its non-voting preferred stock. Those shares were worth 3.65 billion reais (USD892 million) at Friday's close in Sao Paulo.
Citing a source, Reuters reported that it is unlikely that Braskem's controlling shareholder, Brazil's Odebrecht Group, will have the interest or financial strength to buy the stake.
Odebrecht is in the midst of a giant price-fixing, bribery and political kickback investigation related to Petrobras construction projects.
Petrobras officials earlier said they plan to speed up a long-stalled program to sell USD15.1 billion of assets by the end of 2016.
The recent signing of a long-term naphtha supply contract for Braskem has helped the company's stock recover from recent declines. In turn, that could make a potential sale more attractive for Petrobras, Reuters reported.
As MRC wrote previously, in late December 2015, Petrobras agreed to sign a naphtha supply contract with Braskem SA for five years. Under terms of the deal, which was announced in a securities filing, Braskem will pay the equivalent of 102.1% of the benchmark ARA price for naphtha, a petrochemical feedstock. The contract will have a mechanism by which terms can be renegotiated as early as 2018.
Braskem S.A. produces petrochemicals and generates electricity. The Company produces ethylene, propylene, benzene, toluene, xylenes, butadiene, butene, isoprene, dicyclopentediene, MTBE, caprolactam, ammonium sulfate, cyclohexene, polyethylene theraphtalat, polyethylene, and polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
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