Mauricio Tolmasquim, Director of Energy Transition and Sustainability at Petrobras, participated in the panel “Latin America's Natural Gas Future”, during CERAWeek, in Houston, in the United States. With representatives from companies from Argentina, Mexico and Colombia, in addition to Petrobras, the central theme of the debate was the challenge of developing the potential of gas reserves and also of technological solutions to reduce the cost of green hydrogen and increase its scale.

The debate participants agreed that Latin America is rich in quality energy resources with great potential. They were also unanimous in listing the main challenges for developing this potential, which includes planning, infrastructure and lower costs.

“The forecast is that, by 2030, Brazil will be the country with the lowest cost of operating green hydrogen”, commented Tolmasquim. Tolmasquim argues that new technologies are being studied to make the production of green hydrogen cheaper.

Tolmasquim also commented that Petrobras consumes large volumes of grey hydrogen in its refining activities, which is why the company sees the green hydrogen market as an opportunity. “We can replace grey hydrogen with green hydrogen in our refineries”, he highlighted.

In relation to the gas market, Tolmasquim commented that one of Petrobras' strategies is to expand supply, investing in infrastructure projects such as Rota 3, which will feature a gas pipeline with a capacity of 18 million m3 per day; the BMC-33 project, which foresees a gas pipeline with a capacity of 16 million m3 per day; and Sergipe Águas Profundas – SEAP, which provides an additional 18 million m3 per day of capacity.