Petrobras tanker division suspends EAS contract

Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4)’s Transpetro transportation unit suspended contracts with Estaleiro Atlantico Sul shipyard worth 5.3 billion reais ($2.7 billion) to build 16 oil tankers, O Globo reported, citing an interview with Transpetro President Sergio Machado, Bloomberg reports.
To resume the contracts, Estaleiro Atlantico Sul, known as EAS, has until Aug. 30 to find a new partner to provide technology to the shipyard after Samsung Heavy Industries Co. (010140) sold its stake in the business, Machado told the Rio de Janeiro- based newspaper.
Camargo Correa and Queiroz Galvao, EAS’s controlling shareholders, said the company agreed with the suspension of the contracts, O Globo reported without saying how it obtained the information. EAS is in talks with Japan-based Ishikawajima- Harima Heavy Industries to fulfill Transpetro’s demands, the newspaper said, without identifying where the information came from.
Transpetro didn’t respond to calls to mobile-phone and fixed-line telephone numbers.