With no orders after Petrobras decided to buy offshore units abroad, the Atlântico Sul (EAS) and Vard Promar shipyards are breathing on devices and counting down

After the Petrobras made some changes to the Local Content issue, the state of Pernambuco he felt the hard blow on his skin. If you don't know what it is local content, access here. As the state-owned company decided to obtain oil platforms and ships from shipyards in other countries, because it is cheaper than if they were produced in Brazil, the shipyards were left without services in their work portfolios at Suape. This is because many years of attempts have passed and the hope was precisely that Petrobras would return to production with them, but that did not happen.

In an interview with Valor Econômico newspaper, the president of Estaleiro Atlântico Sul revealed that the shipyard may stop working in 2019. This is because 13 ships for Staco that were planned, enabling operational activities until the year 2022, were cancelled. To complete, Traspetro broke with more than half of the project because Petrobras did not sanction the planned deals.

It turns out that formerly the local content law guaranteed 75% of national activities, when it came to ships and FPSO's, but with BR's flexibility and autonomy in choosing any companies according to its will, this is heartbreaking. The EAS manager said what will happen to them, it is likely to happen to any shipyard in the country if the Merchant Marine Fund and the BNDES do not provide credits to continue running activities.

In a regular situation, the Atlântico Sul shipyard manages to employ 3.800 directly, 700 of which would be from outsourced companies. Vard Promar would easily employ 1600 direct and 1500 indirect employees, according to Sindmetal-PE's calculation.

At the moment, there are only 9 ships in the completion phase, adding up to the 3 shipyards. If there are no new contracts by 2019, the doors will be closed. EAS' debts with BNDES reach an incredible sum of 1,3 billion reais and with private banks, this debt reaches 350 million. The two shipyards will be susceptible to judicial recovery.