Definitive entry into Asia

With the Okinawa refinery, we have consolidated our presence on the continent, taking our experience in refining to Japan

We have been in Japan since 2000, when we opened our representation office in Tokyo, which contributed to Petrobras' growth by winning Japanese investment capital over for new partnerships. With this representation in Japan, we have been able to secure significant funding for development projects in Brazil.

In 2005, we started a partnership when we created Brazil-Japan Ethanol (BJE), a joint venture between Petrobras and Nippon Alcohol Hambai. The purpose of BJE is to increasingly opening the Japanese market to ethanol from Brazil.

In 2008, we entered the refining sector in the country, acquiring stakes in Nansei Sekiyu Kabushiki Kaisha (NSS), today our main operation in the country. The NSS assets comprise a refinery with a processing capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil per day, an oil depot with storage capacity of 9.7 million barrels, three piers with capacity to receive product vessels of up to 97,000 deadweight tonnage (dwt) and a monobuoy for Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) vessels of up to 280,000 dwt.

Currently, we hold a 100% stake in Nansei, which is situated on the island of Okinawa, the most southern province of the Japanese archipelago. Okinawa is located in the central region of Southeast Asia, around 1,000 km off the Southeast coast of China - the region where, for example, the Shanghai megalopolis is situated. Besides China, the geographical proximity of emerging economies such as Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea give new meaning to our position in Asia. With operations in Nansei, we have definitively entered into Asia, taking our experience in refining to Japan.