By Brazil Stock Guide – Petrobras (B3: PETR3, PETR4; NYSE: PBR) advanced its plan to expand the Abreu e Lima refinery (RNEST) in Pernambuco as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attended a ceremony on Tuesday (Dec. 2) marking progress on the construction of the facility’s second processing line. The announcement was first published on the company’s official news portal.
CEO Magda Chambriard said the expansion reinforces regional development and strengthens Brazil’s fuel supply. “With the expansion of RNEST’s refining capacity, we are generating jobs, strengthening regional development and increasing the supply of higher-quality fuels for the Brazilian population. At the end of the works, the refinery will serve up to 17% of national diesel demand, reinforcing the country’s energy security,” she said.
Petrobras will invest about R$12 billion to complete the second refining train and maintain the existing unit. The upgrade adds 130,000 barrels per day of processing capacity, doubling RNEST’s total output to 260,000 barrels per day by 2029. Production of ultra-low sulfur diesel will increase by 88,000 barrels per day, reducing Brazil’s reliance on imported fuels, while gasoline, LPG and naphtha output will also rise.
The project is expected to create roughly 15,000 direct and indirect jobs, with 5,700 workers already mobilized. Earlier this year, Petrobras completed the modernization of the refinery’s first train and its atmospheric emissions abatement unit, lifting capacity to 130,000 barrels per day and enabling the new growth phase.
The expansion is unfolding at a site long associated with cost overruns and construction delays. RNEST became one of Petrobras’s most controversial projects of the 2000s and early 2010s, with its budget ballooning multiple times and its execution later scrutinized in federal investigations. The second train — now being revived — had been suspended for years after spending and governance failures derailed the original plan.
Located in Ipojuca, RNEST is Petrobras’s most modern refinery, featuring high automation, international-standard technology and systems focused on operational reliability, energy efficiency and water optimization. Despite its troubled early history, the plant has gained strategic importance since beginning operations in 2014, helping process pre-salt crude and supporting one of Petrobras’s highest diesel-conversion rates as the company seeks to reduce Brazil’s import dependence. diesel-conversion rates.
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