BRAZIL’S domestic rig-building programme is hanging by a thread after the latest twist in the country’s Car Wash corruption scandal undermined the ongoing effort to restructure Sete Brasil, a Petrobras-sponsored rig-building entity.
Sete Brasil has issued billions of dollars’ worth of contracts to local shipyards, and secured Petrobras charters for 28 of the 29 ultra-deepwater rigs it has ordered.
But the yards have now gone more than a year without payment because Sete Brasil’s long-term financing programme ran aground when the original anchor lender, Brazil’s National Development Bank, balked at the spiralling risks.
The
