By Brazil Stock Guide — Petrobras (PETR3, PETR4) is using Brazil’s antitrust watchdog Cade to try to influence the competitive structure of the offshore support vessel market, a little-known but critical link in the country’s pre-salt oil chain.
The move has surfaced in two recent merger reviews. In the first, involving Tidewater’s acquisition of Wilson Sons Ultratug, Petrobras tried to join the case as an interested third party and appealed Cade’s unconditional approval of the transaction. Cade rejected Petrobras’s request, declined to hear the appeal and confirmed the deal’s approval without restrictions. The case later became final.
Now Petrobras is back at Cade in the merger review of OceanPact (OPCT3) and CBO, a deal announced in February and notified to the antitrust authority in April. This time, Petrobras was admitted by Cade’s General Superintendence as an interested third party and submitted data on tenders, blocked foreign-flag vessels and regulatory barriers to entry in Brazil’s offshore vessel market.
The OceanPact-CBO deal would combine two Brazilian offshore services companies through the incorporation of CBO into OceanPact. According to data presented in the Cade case, the combined company would have 73 offshore support vessels, or OSVs, in the broader market: 28 from OceanPact and 45 from CBO. That would give the merged company 15.4% of the total OSV market considered in the proceeding.
The headline number, however, hides more sensitive segments. Petrobras’s concerns are focused on specific types of assets that are essential to offshore production. The most important of these are RSVs, or ROV Support Vessels, used in subsea interventions and operations with remotely operated vehicles.
In that narrower segment, OceanPact and CBO would together have 14 vessels — nine from OceanPact and five from CBO — equivalent to 40% of a market of 35 RSVs. If only Brazilian-flag vessels are considered, their combined share would rise to 45%.
That is the core of the dispute. Petrobras argues that the market should not be assessed too broadly. In its view, OSV is a generic category that includes vessels with very different functions. A platform supply vessel is not necessarily a substitute for a subsea vessel. An oil spill response vessel performs a different role from a vessel designed for ROV support. For a company operating deepwater and pre-salt fields, those distinctions matter.
OceanPact and CBO reject Petrobras’s reading. The companies argue that the deal does not raise competition concerns, that the offshore support market remains highly competitive and that Petrobras itself holds significant buyer power. They also say the regulatory issues cited by Petrobras predate the transaction and cannot be treated as an effect of the merger.
One of the most contested points is the role of foreign vessels. Petrobras argues that foreign competition is less straightforward than the companies suggest because Brazilian regulation gives preference to Brazilian-flag vessels or vessels registered under Brazil’s special registry regime. Before a foreign vessel can be chartered, the market must go through a so-called circularization process before Antaq, Brazil’s waterway transport regulator, to determine whether a suitable Brazilian vessel is available.
OceanPact and CBO say this does not amount to a permanent barrier. In their view, a blocked foreign vessel is not banned from Brazil; it may simply be prevented from serving a specific contract if a Brazilian or equivalent vessel is available. The companies also argue that foreign vessels can enter Brazil through different legal routes and that many foreign-flag vessels already operate in the country.
The companies cite data showing that Brazil had 473 offshore support vessels in operation in December 2025, including 90 foreign-flag vessels, or 19% of the total. A separate Abeam report for February 2026 shows 481 support vessels in Brazil, 390 Brazilian-flag vessels and 91 foreign-flag vessels.
The broader market data support OceanPact and CBO’s argument that the combined company would not be dominant in most categories. In the total OSV market, the merged company would have 15.4%. In PSV/OSRV, it would have 40 vessels, or 19.7% of a market of 203 vessels. In subsea excluding PLSV, it would have 16 vessels, or 20.5%.
But the RSV segment remains the sensitive point. Petrobras is effectively telling Cade that a broad market definition may understate risks in specialized vessels. OceanPact and CBO counter that RSVs should not be treated as a closed market, because other types of vessels can be adapted for ROV operations and Petrobras itself defines, in each tender, which vessels are eligible to compete.
The companies also use Petrobras’s own procurement data to argue that there is strong rivalry. According to OceanPact and CBO, Petrobras’s data show 64 competitive procedures between July 2021 and January 2026, with 39 different winning companies and at least 11 economic groups. CBO won four of those tenders and OceanPact won four others; together, they won eight out of 64, or 12.5% of the total.
This is where the case becomes more than a merger review. Petrobras is not simply objecting to a supplier combination. It is trying to preserve bargaining power and operational flexibility in a chain that supports its offshore production system. The company designs tenders, defines technical specifications, sets contract durations, establishes lots and determines commercial conditions. But it also depends on a relatively small universe of specialized vessels to keep the pre-salt running.
As of the latest case movement reviewed by Brazil Stock Guide, there was no final decision in the OceanPact-CBO proceeding. The latest recorded step was a June 15 meeting between Cade officials and lawyers for the companies, after OceanPact and CBO filed their response to Petrobras’s arguments.
Petrobras does not see offshore support vessels as ordinary suppliers. It sees them as part of the operating backbone of Brazil’s pre-salt and it wants a voice in who controls those assets.
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