PETROBRAS Perfect Storm in Oil Markets Jeopardizes Petrobras’ Strategy; Putting Target Price Under Review
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Equity Research March 09, 2020 Research Note PETROBRAS Perfect storm in oil markets jeopardizes Petrobras’ strategy; putting target price under review Today (09), global markets dawned with worse perspectives on oil dynamics and panic PETR3 over this weekend events. Saudi Arabia unilaterally suspended the current OPEP+ deal Rating - for oil cuts, which led oil prices to plunge. The country was negotiating with OPEP+ members an additional oil cut, in order to balance the oil markets dynamic after the Target-Price - 2020E Under Review outbreak of the COVID-19. However, Russia did not accept the suggested terms; in our Last Price - 03/06/2020 24.04 view, due to Russian interests in maintaining lower oil prices to affect U.S. shale producers, which have higher breakeven costs and are currently on a high level of Upside - production, directly competing with Russia. Afterwards, Saudi Arabia, in a very surprising move, announced a resumption of its full production combined with price discounts, in order to gain market share and affect competitors, slashing oil prices in international PETR4 markets. Therefore, the combination of such scenario of Saudi Arabia hiking its Rating - production, along with the already high level of global supply due to U.S production of shale, have led market conditions to a severely worsen in the supply side. Target-Price - 2020E Under Review Last Price - 03/06/2020 22.83 Such disturbance in oil markets comes in a very bad moment, since the initial concerns with lower oil demand related to the potential impacts in China (due to the COVID-19 Upside - outbreak) have now spread to higher concerns of slower global growth, considering the strong hike of new cases of the disease in other regions in Europe, Asia and Middle East. The consequence is that, in addition to the scenario of lower demand, we have Trading data now a perspective of oversupply, with severe consequences in the market and no short as of 03/09/2020 term perspectives of improvement. The effect of this oversupply to the U.S. shale producers is less investments in new projects and, therefore, a gradual decline in the Market Cap R$ billion 307.0 production curve; however, such impact should only occur in the middle term, since 1 Month Change % -21.8 ongoing projects tend to be partially or totally hedged, so the decline in production will take some time. Until then, if no other measure is provided by the OPEP+ members, the LTM Change % -11.9 oversupply scenario should persist, affecting expectation and prices. YTD Change % -24.4 Petrobras. For Petrobras, we see a relevant impact, since the lower commodity price 52w Low R$ 22.55 will directly affect revenues and EBITDA. We estimate that for each US$ 5 change in oil 52w High R$ 31.24 prices, Petrobras’ 2020 EBITDA is affected by ~US$ 3 billion (approximately 10% of its 2019 EBITDA). We see such impacts more relevant in the short term, affecting 2020 EBITDA, but the most concerning point is the development of new projects. The current 140 PETR4 PETR3 IBOV breakeven of US$ 25/bbl for the total portfolio and US$ 21/bbl for the pre-salt can maintain positive cash generation even with oil prices around US$ 30/bbl, though company’s return should be reduced, putting in risk the prospects of higher dividend 120 yield than we estimate from 2021 onwards, in addition to chiefly worse conditions for new projects if oil prices persists below US$ 40. 100 Another concerning point is the ongoing process of the sale of refineries. With lower prices of oil products, the attractiveness of the business is reduced, in our opinion. Therefore, the expectation of raising US$ 10 to US$ 15 billion could be jeopardized if the volatility persists. Regarding the asset sales, we have previously mentioned the 80 downside of the company’s strategy of further concentrating its portfolio on E&P, since it centralizes revenues on commodity prices, being more subject to a moment of high volatility in commodities, such as now. Therefore, we see oil companies with a more diversified portfolio and integrated model as more prepared to deal will an eventual scenario of lower oil prices for an extended period, since revenues from other segments Daniel Cobucci can maintain profitability when commodity cycles are low. [email protected] All in all, we see now a riskier scenario for the O&G segment, since this major and unexpected turmoil should jeopardize returns and cash generation, which should bring volatility to Petrobras’ stocks. Another point of attention is that if this scenario persists for longer periods, FCF generation should be affected, which should also affect the trajectory of declining debt, since the company can have difficulties to follow on with its amortization schedule and fail to match its net debt/EBITDA target of 1.5x, either by the reduced amortization or due to the possibly lower EBITDA, increasing the ratio. Therefore, considering this new context, we are now putting our recommendation and target price under review, in order to provide a full revision of our model and include recent assumptions of oil prices and assessment of this situation for Petrobras in this new context (before Outperform with YE20 target price of R$ 32.20 for PETR4 and R$ 36.50 for PETR4). As described above, this scenario suggests a more cautious view on the name, though we shall mention that company’s fundamentals counts with several positive factors, such as (i) the consistent declines in the lifting costs in pre-salt fields; 1 / 5 Petrobras (ii) the prospects of higher production with the entry of new systems; (iii) the prospects of higher dividend yield with the new dividends policy. 2 / 5 Disclaimer RELEVANT INFORMATION BB-Banco de Investimento S.A., its affiliates or subsidiaries expect to receive or intend to seek compensation for investment banking services and/or products and services other than investment services from the companies mentioned herein, its affiliates or subsidiaries within the next three months. This is a public document published by BB-Banco de Investimento S.A., which is regulated by the Comissão de Valores Mobiliários - CVM (Securities and Exchange Commission of Brazil), for the provision of research on investment products. 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