LONDON â€" Royal Dutch Shell said Wednesday that it had agreed to sell for about $1 billion a minority interest in an offshore Brazilian oil project to Qatar Petroleum International, the emirate’s vehicle for oil and gas investments abroad.
The Brazilian project, called Parque das Conchas, fits the pattern of assets that Shell and other large oil companies are looking to sell as investors demand better returns from capital spending that has soared in recent years.
Shell is raising money while not giving up control by selling 23 percent of its stake and keeping the remaining 50 percent. It will also save capital on a possible third stage of the project, a midsize oil field that began producing in 2009 and now yields 50,000 barrels per day.
The deal gives Qatar, a Gulf emirate that is the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, a foothold in another key petroleum exporter, Brazil. Like Kuwait, Qatar earns large surpluses from its oil and gas industry, and is looking for opportunities to invest the cash. The Qataris have pushed Shell, which is one of the major investors in the emirate, to include them in projects outside of their own territory.
Shell’s new chief executive, Ben van Beurden, who took over from Peter Voser at the beginning of the year, is accelerating asset sales to raise cash to pay for ongoing projects and trim capital spending.
Shell earlier this month said it would be selling its minority interests in an Australian liquefied natural gas project called Wheatstone to the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company for $1.1 billion.
Mr. van Beurden warned on Jan. 17 that Shell’s profit for the fourth quarter of last year would fall 48 percent to $2.9 billion, compared with the period a year earlier. Shell is scheduled to release full financial results on Thursday. Mr. van Beurden said that Shell needed to improve its results and spend capital in a more disciplined way.
Analysts forecast that Shell and other oil companies will step up asset sales. Shell has already said that it is considering selling some of its onshore properties in Nigeria, where unrest has cut into production. Analysts say that it also may sell oil and gas fields in the North Sea and in the United States.
Shell’s European rival BP began the asset sales trend by raising a total of $50 billion in cash through a long series f sales in the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea, Russia and other areas after the 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster. BP had little choice. It needed to raise cash to pay claims and potential fines in the Gulf of Mexico. But the company and markets were surprised by the high prices brought by this attic clear out.
BP’s chief executive Robert W. Dudley says that he will try to raise another $10 billion to fund share buybacks that have proved popular with investors.
Shell’s sale to Qatar needs approval of Brazilian regulators. Shell has other interests in Brazil. Last autumn, the company took a 20 percent stake in a much bigger Brazilian project called Libra that will require large amounts of capital in the coming years.
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