Brazil’s Petrobas has allowed its Venezuelan state oil company counterpart PDVSA to extend the deadline to make its contribution to the long delayed Abreu e Lima refinery project in northeast Brazil. PDVSA may assume its stake in the project as late as 2013 when operations are anticipated to begin.
The company had failed to secure a USD10 billion loan from Brazil’s state-development bank BNDES that it had intended for use in paying its 40% stake, in February. This deadline is the latest of several that had been missed in the six years since the project originally came into the works.