Brava Energia SA

Brava Energia SA

21.69
BRL
+0.59
(+2.80%)
8.97BMarket Cap
Nov 09Next Earn

Q4 FY2025 · Earnings Call TranscriptMarch 12, 2026

Richard

Good afternoon, everyone. I would like to thank everyone for joining us on this earnings conference call.

I will start by briefly summarizing my history at the company and then highlighting the main results of the year 2025, which was very good for Brava. Brava is a great oil and gas investment platform.

The fund I represent built a relevant stake in the company in early 2025, which led me to take a seat at the board of directors and then to the position of chairman. I designed the shareholders' agreement, which helps build the necessary alignment between the leadership team, executives, and shareholders of the company.

After a year at the beginning of this story, I can say that Brava is on the right track. We ended the cycle of project implementation and began a new cycle, focused on stabilizing production, unlocking value through portfolio management, capital allocation, and consistent results.

In this transition, we made changes in the leadership team in a gradual and coordinated manner in order to reflect this new moment and to ensure focus on the company's goals. I, along with the signatories of the shareholders' agreement, share the view that we have the opportunity and potential to be more than good operators of oil and gas assets.

We can be excellent allocators of capital in projects in the sector, and we have the best vehicle to do so. We had a transformational year in 2025.

Brava showed strong evolution in absolutely all business metrics, from the operational safety, efficiency, and financial standpoint. We renewed our annual production record.

We produced more than 81,000 barrels of oil equivalent daily, an increase of 46% year-on-year. Operating efficiency across our portfolio supported records in all financial indicators.

Revenue exceeded $2 billion USD, and we recorded the company's lowest level of lifting cost in our history. These milestones boosted our results and the expansion of EBITDA, which exceeded $800 million in the full year and was fundamental for the strong reduction in the net debt over EBITDA ratio, which ended the year close to 2x.

2026 marks the beginning of a new cycle for Brava. We will focus on strengthening the safety culture and the sense of ownership of our team.

For Brava, every barrel counts. Our industry is cyclical, and the focus of this management is to ensure that Brava is prepared to operate profitably in cycles of low oil prices and deliver strong results in cycles of high commodity prices.

In January, we started an intense cost reduction program. Our goal is to make the company even more efficient.

In this project, we have already identified more than 100 million BRL worth of savings in existing contracts, and we will continue to focus on efficiency. Strategically, in mid-February, we announced the arbitration decision that will support the consolidation of the full results of Papa-Terra field, an initiative that joins many others focused on the company's portfolio management.

We reaffirm our commitment to tirelessly seek a company that operates safely and efficiently to support achievement of our main goals, i.e. the reduction of the company's leverage, the reduction of our cost of debt, efficient management of the portfolio and capital allocation, in addition to creating value for our shareholders and stakeholders.

Before closing, I highlight the relevance of the Atlanta project. We received from OTC the highest award in the oil and gas industry.

This shows the high technical and project execution capacity of our team. This is a historic feat for an independent Brazilian oil and gas company, confirming that Brava has the most qualified team in the international oil and gas industry.

Now, I will turn the floor to our operations officers, Travassos and Boeri, and I'd like to welcome our new CFO, Luís Carvalho, in his first participation in our earnings calls. Thank you all.

Travassos

Thank you, Richard. Good afternoon, everyone.

Thank you for your presence, and I take this opportunity to register my best wishes and success to Richard in his first earnings conference call. I will highlight some of the key points about the offshore operation, but before that, I will use the slide on the screen to provide a snapshot of the company's production results.

The slide serves primarily as a reference for those who do not follow our operations so closely. On the left, we highlight our main production clusters, in addition to our infrastructure here in Rio Grande do Norte.

On the right, the slide already illustrates well the production growth that the company has been delivering quite consistently, especially oil production, which accounts for 81% of overall production. When we look at the bottom of the slide, these three-colored bars bring a breakdown of production growth by asset, where we can observe a good consistency in onshore production, which Boeri will detail a little later, and a very substantial growth in the offshore segment, caused by BC-10, or made possible by the start of operations of BC-10 in Brava's portfolio, but above all, by the increase in production at Atlanta field, as well as by the increase in production and efficiency at Papa-Terra.

Production in 2025 grew around 46% compared to 2024, and is the current production record for the company, even when compared to the combined production of the two companies that are now Brava Energia. Speaking a little about the offshore business, now I would like to highlight Papa-Terra field.

This is an asset that throughout 2025 presented higher production in absolute numbers, since it started with an average production in the first quarter of approximately 14,000 barrels daily, increasing to an average production of 19,000 barrels in the following quarters, without the addition of new wells. More than that, it has been showing a very consistent operating efficiency.

The slight reduction we see in the chart in Q4 '25 results from a production shutdown that was scheduled, which was, by the way, successfully carried out in November. That shutdown took place with a duration and cost below our budget.

Now, turning to cost, it is important to highlight the significant reduction in lifting cost during the year of 2025. This is the result not only of the increase in production that I mentioned just now, but also of lower operating costs, renegotiation of contracts, return of leased equipment, optimization of teams, among other measures.

We are convinced that we will further reduce the lifting cost, not only by increasing production coming from the two new wells scheduled in our campaign—I will detail that in a moment—but also by new cost reductions already negotiated in current contracts. Moving on to the next slide, I'd like to detail our integrated campaign: Atlanta and Papa-Terra, two wells in each asset.

Let me remind you that this campaign is fully contracted. Therefore, there is no risk of fluctuation in prices or deadlines due to any geopolitical factors, I just want to make that very clear.

The rig we will use is the Alpha Star rig. It is already on its way to the location after having completed the preparation and loading stage here in Guanabara Bay.

It has already been inspected by the control agencies, including IBAMA. It has also presented all the evidence for approval by the environmental agency, we do not expect any events or complications, and we plan to start drilling at Papa-Terra field, that is, rig at the seabed now, in the second half of March, as foreseen in our schedule.

This slide brings a timeline of the main events planned. We estimate that the wells have a production potential, I am not giving you any prediction of production, but rather their potential, with all the uncertainties that exist in this type of production development, to give you a number, estimates between 10,000 and 13,000 barrels daily at Papa-Terra and between 15,000 and 20,000 at Atlanta, considering Brava's 100% working interest.

Along this slide, I highlight the OTC award. Before talking about the relevance of this award for us, I would like to highlight what it represents for any oil and gas company.

Receiving the OTC award, which is also consolidated as the main global forum for the technological and strategic development of the offshore oil and gas industry, represents an important seal of excellence and capacity in the execution of highly complex projects. This award is recurrently considered the Oscar of the oil and gas industry.

For us at Brava, we are the first independent company outside the US to win this award. In addition, we are also the first independent Brazilian company to develop a deepwater project from its conception all the way to efficient and safe production, which is already happening, and which was delivered, by the way, on time and on budget.

This is clear proof of our ability to develop projects and to operate complex assets, to establish partnerships with various players from the most different levels of the industry. This global recognition demonstrated by this award is proof of the technical quality of our team, the courage of our shareholders, and the trust of our partners, as well as of our suppliers.

On behalf of Brava Energia, I would like to express my gratitude to all people involved. With that, I give the floor to Jorge Boeri, who will speak about the onshore segment.

Jorge Boeri

Thank you, Travassos. After ending the third quarter with a production of 35,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, the highest level in the history of onshore for Brava, in the fourth quarter, we recorded a reduction to 30,000 boed.

I'd like to reinforce that this variation was exclusively due to the required shutdown of certain facilities in the Potiguar basin, which occurred in October last year. That is a one-off event, not related to the quality of our assets or the performance of the reservoir.

Our action has been focused on the safe resumption of operations. We have already re-established 100% of the affected facilities and made progress in the reactivation of facilities to restore production and steam generation.

In heavy oil fields, steam injection is critical to sustain volume. Interruption impacts production in the short term, but does not change the reservoir's potential.

The experience of 2023, when we also faced a temporary interruption in steam injection, demonstrated that once the steam injection is normalized, volumes tend to recover consistently. This reinforces our confidence in the recovery.

It is important to contextualize this transition within our strategy of strong capital discipline. Remember that since June last year, we have not been carrying out drilling activities, and we maintain a minimum level of workover.

This significantly reduces our CAPEX and increases cash generation in the short term. Maintaining production in a reduced investment scenario is something we achieved until the interruption and demonstrates the robustness of our assets and the efficiency of our reservoir management.

Therefore, we are facing a temporary impact on volumes, while maintaining a structural strategy of financial discipline and operating efficiency. Moving on to the next slide, I would like to highlight a structural vector of value creation: the implementation of our IOC, the Integrated Operations Center, in Rio Grande do Norte and Bahia.

In Rio Grande do Norte, we are migrating from 21 control rooms distributed in the field to a single centralized room, integrating operational supervision and logistics coordination. We are starting the first drones control.

This movement brings clear gains in scale and efficiency, focusing on the reduction of operating costs, reduced response time, reduction of production losses, optimization of the use of contracted resources, and increased safety in our operations. In Bahia, we have made progress in consolidating the operation rooms into a unified room and implementing inspections with drones, which already have a significant reduction in response time and increased productivity.

These initiatives are structural and should generate recurring efficiency gains. Speaking briefly of downstream, our industrial asset is also going through an important phase of operational strengthening.

We are finalizing the construction of a tank with a capacity of 35,000 cubic meters, expanding our logistical flexibility and reducing exposure to possible delays in the arrival of vessels. We are also building a fourth oil treatment unit, increasing the reliability of the system.

Since January 1st, we have been operating an unloading station for double-trailer trucks, increasing the efficiency of our road transportation. In summary, even in the face of a one-off operational impact, we continue to combine capital discipline, cash generation, and structural efficiency initiatives, positioning the onshore business to resume growth with higher operating leverage once the investment cycle is reactivated.

With that, I turn the floor to our CFO, Luís Carvalho.

Luís Carvalho

Thank you, Boeri. I will now go over the financial highlights of the full year of 2025 and the fourth quarter of 2025.

On the slide, it's important to underscore that despite a weaker macroeconomic scenario, the company was able to bring full revenue increase even with average Brent 14% lower in 2025. Brava delivered revenue growth of more than 15% year-on-year.

This result reflects strong operational growth, production increasing 46% in 2025. This is a consequence of offshore, which already represents the majority of revenue generation, consolidating the company's profile.

Moving on to the slide on EBITDA, I think it's important to show that this year was margin expansion and cash generation throughout 2025. The company delivered record EBITDA of $806 million USD, a growth of 21% year-on-year.

EBITDA margin expanded to around 39%, reflecting operating efficiency gains. After implementation of Atlanta phase one, all segments started to generate positive cash, both offshore and onshore, and onshore presented improvements in terms of profitability throughout last year.

Moving to the slide on lifting cost, here it is important to point out the strong cost savings we saw all along 2025. Lifting cost fell to the company's all-time low of around $15 without charter.

In offshore, the reduction was approximately 16% year-on-year, driven by a higher production and a bigger scale. With the planned drilling campaign, we still see additional room for unit cost reduction throughout the year 2026.

Moving on to CAPEX, the core message here is Brava's capital discipline. 2024 was a year of intense investments on account of Atlanta project, while 2025 marked the fifth consecutive quarter of CAPEX reduction after that.

Offshore CAPEX was down 60% year-on-year following the completion of the Atlanta implementation. In onshore, the reduction in investments reflected rig optimization and greater operating efficiency in all existing fields.

The next slide might be the most important one in the presentation of our financial results. It is very important to highlight the consistent deleveraging we had all along 2025.

We ended the year with more than $1 billion in cash, reinforcing the company's liquidity. Leverage fell from 3.4x to around 2.1x over the course of 2025, showing a clear deleveraging trajectory.

Active liability management also allowed to reduce the average cost of debt, which remains a big priority for the company's management, and we see room for additional reductions over the next few years. On the next slide, it's worth reinforcing the company's consistent cash flow.

The quarter delivered another period with positive free cash flow. Operating cash generation was sufficient to fund CAPEX, hedging, and other financial obligations.

Basically, combining robust liquidity and cash generation, we maintain a solid capital structure. Moving on to our hedge strategy, the core message here is the protection of the company's cash generation.

Our hedging strategy aims to protect against downside risk while maintaining exposure to potential oil price upside. We use a combination of collars, puts, and NDFs, while maintaining financial flexibility with contracts that do not provide for margin calls.

The objective here is to ensure cash predictability without compromising the upside for Brava. It is important to say that in relation to freight, we were able to lock some loads before this spike.

Regarding crack spreads, we had not made protections, but now with a more positive scenario, we have been very active in this type of contract. When considering all these variables, we observe a very positive netback for the company looking at Q2 and beyond.

Moving to the final slide, if we look back, it's worth to highlight value creation since the merge that resulted in the creation of Brava. In 2024, our production was around 55,000 barrels, our EBITDA $660 million, our lifting cost higher than $17, and our leverage over 3x.

In 2025, our production grew to 80,000 barrels, EBITDA increased to $800 million, our lifting cost dropped to $15 per barrel, and our leverage dropped to almost 2x. It is worth noting that in 2026, we created a cost reduction and contract management program called Brava Efficient or Efficient Brava.

Far, we have already mapped around 150 million BRL as cost reduction, with 50% of this amount already realized. Of this total, 90 million are focused on contracts and 60 million on other initiatives.

Looking ahead, our focus remains on basically four pillars. First, stability of production, with safety in our operations.

Two, free cash generation with additional leverage reduction that will allow transferring value from debt to equity. Three, execution of the drilling campaign at Papa-Terra and Atlanta on time and on budget.

Lastly, managing our portfolio actively, with a focus on unlocking value for our shareholders. Now, we can move on to the Q&A session.

Operator

We will now begin the Q&A session. If you want to ask questions, please click on the raise hand button.

Please hold as we collect the questions. First question comes from Mr.

Tasso Vasconcellos with UBS. Mr.

Vasconcellos, go ahead.

Tasso Vasconcellos

Hello, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions.

Richard, Luís, and Travassos spoke a little about this, but I would like to wish you good luck in facing the new challenges. If I may, I'd like to ask two questions.

The first is about dividends. When we looked at your balance sheet for Q4, it seems that you announced a minimum dividend payout of 50 million BRL, and I'd like to understand how you made adjustments to the profit base to calculate the dividend payout.

I'd like to understand what are your internal discussions regarding dividend payout from now onwards. I'd like to understand whether it would make sense to zero the minimum dividends paying the bylaws of the company so that the company can remain focused on deleveraging.

Second question: since there was an announcement regarding taxation of oil, is there any expectation of the impact on Brava? How much have you been exporting, and would the hedging you made could in a way negatively impact you in a double fashion, you have some kind of cap in the Brent upside so that there might be another impact with this export taxation?

I'd like to get your feedback on this.

Luís Carvalho

Thank you, Tasso. Luís will answer this.

As for dividends, starting with the first question, the company has a policy: we follow minimum compulsory dividend payout of 25%. There was a discussion regarding perhaps using a portion of the so-called non-cash profit, but we understood that given what is set forth as minimum compulsory dividend payout, we thought it made sense without hurting our liquidity.

Today, we have more than $1 billion in cash at the company. $50 million is not a relevant amount in that context, the board of directors thought it would be good to distribute that amount.

Looking forward, that's a discussion that we will have eventually at the right timing, the moment that the company achieves a net debt over EBITDA ratio below 1.5x. We might then discuss whether we can change the bylaws or not.

At the moment, there's no such discussion. At the moment, we decided to pay the minimum dividends.

Second question was about taxation. This is obviously very recent news.

Our tax team is working into that to calculate and see what possible impacts the company can feel. What I can say is that in 2025, approximately 30% of our revenue was geared or came from our exports.

In terms of portfolio, that's the beauty of Brava's portfolio, we have the most verticalized and integrated portfolio, and this in a way is protected for us, it protects us against this kind of measure. We are relatively comfortable in relation to all of these changes announced today.

Again, it is way too soon for us to understand the possible implications for the company. Lastly, you asked about hedging.

Perhaps we will speak more about this in another question, but basically, we have a policy of hedging our cash generation in 2026, where we'll have a concentration of investments related to the drilling campaign at Papa-Terra and Atlanta. Up until two weeks ago, we had 10 out of 10 analysts having an opinion that oil prices would be down to $50 or more challenging levels, and the company decided to hedge a not substantial part of our production to assure cash generation.

Regarding hedging, there is no type of contract that would have predicted a margin call. Secondly, the curve that we used to define the thresholds is relatively conservative, not to say very conservative.

We use the PDP curve, we have a significant portion of our production still exposed to short-term oil, spot price. There is an expectation for Brava to capture part of this upside.

To end this explanation on hedging, we presented during the presentation, the slide, and in our earnings release, is that we are discussing the Brent hedge. We have to take into account that there are other very relevant portions in the composition of the final price.

In that context, we had good hedging for freight for the next three or four offloads. We got a freight price before the spike that we saw recently.

In terms of the crack spread, which is the difference between our product vis-a-vis the Brent, we had not hedged anything and we were able to capture these better spreads that we are seeing now. The past quarter, we saw Brent -$10, -$11, given the whole geopolitical context.

Now, the last offload, we saw a positive Brent. This is all just to say that when we talk about hedging vis-a-vis what we have seen in terms of freight, crack spread, and Brent, the netback is positive for Brava in this context.

Thank you.

Tasso Vasconcellos

It is super clear, thank you very much.

Operator

Next question from Bruno Montanari with Morgan Stanley. Please, go ahead, Mr.

Montanari.

Bruno Montanari

Good afternoon to the Brava team, thank you for taking my questions. I have a follow-up and two questions.

Going back to hedging, if you could confirm how much is hedged in Q1 and Q2? About the current market situation, are you not rolling over the 12 months, and perhaps leaving a greater part of the long curve untightened, considering the current scenario?

My first question is about cash generation. It was super strong in the quarter, with a good component in our analysis, certainly from a strong release of working capital.

In terms of cash generation, what are you expecting for 2026? How is that working capital going to be offset now in Q1 or Q2 of 2026?

The second question is about recycling of the portfolio. What's new regarding analyses and discussions at the board and at the management meetings regarding potential M&A, purchase and sale of assets?

Thank you.

Luís Carvalho

Thank you, Bruno. I'm going to take your first two questions that have to do more with the financial part, and then Richard will speak about the portfolio, although I handle M&A as well.

Regarding your question on hedging, we have now for Q1 approximately 80% of the PDP curve hedged at a Brent of $64-$65. Again, let me remind you, there is a freight component also and the crack spread component.

Looking forward, our policy is an 18-month forward policy, where in every quarter we have both an upper and a lower limit to work with in terms of hedge. What is important to highlight is that we don't have a goal of taking risk related to hedge.

Hedge is a tool that the company has been using to protect part of our cash generation in a year that, up until recently, was pointing to more challenging oil scenarios, and with a concentration of our CAPEX given the drilling campaign at Papa-Terra and Atlanta. Basically, looking forward, which is the second part of your question, we have analyzed not just towards the end of the year, but also for next year.

We analyze the curves, and the curves are very volatile. We also saw greater volatility in the more short-term contracts.

Just this week, we saw the greatest intraday volatility of Brent in history. It was very hard to capture this short-term volatility, but for the long run, we have been fairly active.

We have been discussing this topic daily at the company to see what kind of hedge protection we want to have for our company. This hedging policy is a living organism, we analyze both macroeconomic conditions and the balance sheet of the company, and we evolve accordingly and make adjustments accordingly.

As for your second question, I think that this was the fourth or fifth consecutive quarter with positive cash generation, which shows that in 2024, the company had a disbursement, an investment phase that was very intense because of the Atlanta project. 2025 was a year of certain CAPEX normalization, CAPEX returning to levels that were much lower.

2026 is a year of investment to drill these four wells, as Travassos mentioned in his presentation. 2026 will concentrate investments to capture organic growth by year-end and beginning of 2027.

Starting in 2027, we do not have any project with an FID or a new investment. We'll probably work with a lower CAPEX than what we have for 2026.

As for cash generation, it will depend a lot on the oil outlook. We see a lot of volatility right now, but I guess the core message from our company is that we want to be prepared to deal with a $50 barrel of oil without having a problem.

That's why we are reducing our debt, the cost of debt, improving efficiency, and our goal here is to be able to balance the company with oil costing $50. If oil costs more than that, good, the company will be well-positioned to capture these returns, and going back to your previous question, perhaps we could think about dividends or share buyback.

This is for the future. Richard, regarding portfolio?

Richard

As for portfolio management, thank you for the question. I don't want to get into the nitty-gritty of M&A because this hurts more than helps the deal.

Portfolio management in the oil and gas industry should be routine. We should not have any taboo.

At the end of the day, what we want to do is reduce the reliance on some types of assets and focus on those assets with a greater return for us, for the company. At the end of the day, it's about that.

Bruno Montanari

It's clear, thank you very much.

Operator

Next question from Gabriel Barra with Citi. Please, you may go ahead.

Gabriel Barra

Hello, everyone, thank you for taking my questions. I have two questions.

There have been some advances in the arbitration process at Papa-Terra. I'd like to hear from you about what are the next steps now, what we should expect with the next developments of the discussion of the arbitration.

The second point, going back to the first question, I think this discussion about the export tax, I think it's very important. I remember going back to 2023, I think there were very important discussions for the sector about the legal insecurity in Brazil, and when we look at your case specifically, it's a company that was hedged, tried to prepare, and at this moment you end up having this impact, almost resulting in a negative impact, just coming back to that question.

Within that, I don't know if Luís or Richard maybe could discuss this a little further to understand. Given your hedging policy that ended up locking your caps on Brent, maybe to rethink and only lock the floor.

I know it's early to discuss that, but I'd like to hear about this from you. Maybe we should think about a different hedging way from now on, considering this uncertainty scenario where the price goes up too much, and with the export tax.

The second question is your capacity to manage maybe the export side, maybe delay export a little bit longer, wait a little bit more to see what's going to happen with the war in this scenario, or maybe revert more to the domestic market, I'd like to hear about your flexibility in the export. Those are the two points: hedging policy and export, and Papa-Terra.

Thank you.

Richard

Thank you, Gabriel. About Papa-Terra, I think that the arbitration is going along well for us, as was released recently.

The team is looking into it, but we expect to be able to consolidate the result. We need to wait for the final decision.

As for the hedging policy that Luís already mentioned, if we look back at the end of last year, we have a very strong CAPEX for this year. At the end of the day, we are increasing production for next year, it's a moment for the company to invest, and we'd like to preserve our liquidity and cash predictability so that we can meet all of our commitments.

Of course, we still have upside in terms of the oil, but the netback, as Luís mentioned, is positive. It's not that we're capped.

About the taxes, it's too early to say, but Luís also mentioned that last year, 30% of our results came from exports. Considering that, we are a little bit less exposed than other players.

Luís Carvalho

Barra, if I may just add, in the discussion we have with the shareholders, we didn't want to deliver 2025 with leverage close to 2x, that's the lowest level that the company has achieved, and get to the end of 2026 needing to discuss leverage higher than 2.5x, 3x. The scenario up to two, three weeks ago was a consensus that the oil would be at $50, a more challenging scenario, but there's no guarantee that this scenario might not return at some point.

In this context, as I said in the previous question, we've been preparing the company to be able to live comfortably with a scenario where the oil is at $50. With that said, we have been working on structures that protect part of our cash generation to be able to meet the investments we have during the year of 2026, without giving up on capturing these upsides.

We have been locking some structures via zero-cost collars, synthetic puts, NDFs, so that we don't push a cap of a relevant part of our production. As I said, the volume that we have hedged is very conservative as regards what we could have.

We have a very active risk management so that we can capture these upsides as well, without compromising, again, the company's leverage in a scenario that until recently was quite adverse.

Gabriel Barra

Okay. About the exports, is there any way to maybe bring these exports to a level that is lower than what you have today, or is there not a lot of flexibility?

I'm sorry, just going to that.

Luís Carvalho

On the exports, basically the export products come from Atlanta and BC-10. There are some very short-term contracts that we need to fulfill with some cargo, but yes, it is a scenario that we will be able to reassess very early, just few hours of the publication of the resolution.

We will look into it and evaluate the possibility of maybe diverting those cargos to the domestic market. Again, you talked about the double impact of the hedge and the tax.

Brava's portfolio, in our opinion, presents a level of defensiveness against this, because we're more integrated, more verticalized. We have products here, diesel, jet fuel.

One way or another, not only considering the volume that is exported, that is not in its totality, as much as this verticalization that we have with the downstream, which somehow makes us more protected than other peer players of upstream.

Gabriel Barra

Very clear, Luís. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question from Bruno Amorim with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Bruno Amorim

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions.

The first is a follow-up on the comments you made about the drilling campaign. It helps to have that scenario.

The follow-up is, just to understand a little from you what you expect in terms of this production reduction in Papa-Terra and Atlanta after drilling, once the growth plan for the beginning of next year, when the new wells start operation. If you can also remind us about the ballpark CAPEX that you expect for this year for the company, that'd be very helpful.

Thank you.

Travassos

I'll take this one, Bruno. Starting to talk about the drilling campaign, it is very much in line with what we planned, what we programmed.

Early this morning, the rig left Guanabara Bay. It spent some time here loading, meeting some requirements of the environmental agency, and now it is arriving at Papa-Terra.

We still have some time to prepare the rig, and we expect now in the second half of March, we may start effectively the drilling in Papa-Terra. I highlighted in my presentation, all the contracts are being signed, equipment bought, acquired already, we don't have any expectations of any impacts due to the geopolitical scenario we're seeing.

The campaign's going very well. Speaking a little bit about the reduction in Papa-Terra and Atlanta, this is a concept that we always mention.

Heavy oil field has a very typical behavior in terms of this production with decline, starting at around 20%, sometimes deeper, and then it gets to bring a level of decrease rate that is much below that. Atlanta and Papa-Terra are at different moments.

Papa-Terra, we have today a range of decrease already starting at this, below 20%, but close to 15%. That's the decrease rate in Papa-Terra.

Atlanta is at a different moment. We still have a more significant decrease.

We operate Atlanta through three different systems, three pumps, with three wells at different levels of different status. We have one pump on wells 6 and 7, the first ones that we implemented.

We have 4 and 5, and we have 2 and 3, which were wells that were already operating at that Petrojarl. These wells, we have BSW around 60%, 4 and 5 as well 60%, and 6 and 7 are at 20%.

This BSW is determining the definition of this decrease, because as it increases, we adjust this decrease rate. That's what we have in these two main assets.

We follow this up very closely, and they comply very much with what we planned and what we expected in our models, both for Papa-Terra and Atlanta.

Bruno Amorim

Thank you, Travassos. Can you just remind us quickly, I think you made a comment about potential production of the new wells.

If you can just clarify if you're talking about numbers per well or for the group of wells, please?

Travassos

Yes, I'm talking about the set of wells. Remind you that we're talking about potential.

These projects, and that's not a specificity of Atlanta or Papa-Terra, all of this production broad projects are based on estimates that we have. There's a team highly experienced that every company, we do our estimates.

That's why the numbers I brought, something around 11, 14 in Papa-Terra in that order of magnitude, Atlanta a little bit more, 15 to 20,000 barrels, refer to both wells together, both in Atlanta and Papa-Terra. Another point, 100% Brava for the working interest.

Brava, what we're going to effectively produce at the units.

Bruno Amorim

Excellent. Finally, CAPEX that you expect for this year, for the company overall?

Travassos

CAPEX, I'll be a little bit more cautious, Bruno, due to guidance. I'll bring some figures so that I don't leave you so to speak.

We have growth CAPEX, that is a lot of the CAPEX that we're going to exercise throughout this year, and we have part of CAPEX that's upgrade of integrity. In 2025, we had CAPEX around $500 million.

This CAPEX this year, it's slightly higher, but it's the growth CAPEX. That's that order of magnitude.

Despite the campaign in Papa-Terra occurring before the campaign in Atlanta, the CAPEX in Atlanta is slightly higher than Papa-Terra because in Atlanta we are acquiring new equipment. In Papa-Terra, we have a large number of pieces of equipment that we are able to use.

The CAPEX in Papa-Terra this year is basically the drilling campaign and the placement of the rig.

Bruno Amorim

Thank you. Good day.

Operator

Next question from Régis Cardoso with XP. Please go ahead.

Régis Cardoso

Hi, everyone. Good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions.

Perhaps you can give us an update on the investment plan on two aspects: the drilling campaign, I'm thinking more towards 2027, because there will be a substantial CAPEX reduction in 2027, we understand that you need to be contracting more towards the second half of 2027. Could you give us an update on the investment expectation looking forward more than a year ahead from now?

Also, on hedging, that's my second question. Perhaps, you could give us an example of the margin calls.

I think that Luís mentioned that the contracts that you have did not have margin calls. I understand that normally this is a usual condition in these contracts.

You also mentioned that sales domestically are not impacted. You sell part of the oil as bunker fuel, and I would like to confirm that this is truly a domestic sale and that would be an important protection regarding the announcement made just today.

Luís Carvalho

Let me start with the 2027 CAPEX. Basically, although the drilling campaign, the four wells for Papa-Terra and Atlanta, we do not have any project with an FID or a new drilling.

As you mentioned, in 2024 we had an intense CAPEX because of the Atlanta project. 2025, we saw normalization.

2026, we'll increase the CAPEX, as Travassos mentioned, because of this growth campaign, drilling campaign, four new wells, which will drive our production up in addition to offsetting decline. In 2027, we should get back to a level closer to maintenance levels for the company.

Again, there's a part of the CAPEX of the drilling campaign that will stretch to 2027 because of the drilling of wells, but in 2027 we should expect a CAPEX reduction again. There is nothing contracted for new projects.

As for the contracts, you're correct. We have clean contracts and no expectation of a margin call.

We are very careful regarding basically two things in our hedging strategy: one, not having any chance of us to be over-hedged, and two, not having contracts that have any expectation of margin calls. Regarding the hedge, we have a lot of peace of mind.

As for bunker, bunker is not included in the MP. At least this was the initial view of our tax team.

We are still studying this. Like I said, the resolution was published a couple of hours ago, we're still looking into this to see whether bunker is not included.

This is our initial understanding of the resolution.

Régis Cardoso

Perfect, thank you.

Richard

I would like to thank all of you for joining our call. I think it's very clear that we have a lot to do in our company, make the company more efficient, improve the results for shareholders, and deleverage the company.

I think that we are on the right track and we will pursue this tirelessly. Thank you very much for joining us today.

Operator

Brava Energia's conference call is now ended. We'd like to thank you for your participation and we wish you a good day.