The football teams of Spain, England, Portugal and Italy all left Brazil with their tails between their legs. And now Maersk Oil is following them out of the door.
The Maersk subsidiary has been trying to make a profit from its oil investments in the South American country for the last 13 years, but now the adventure looks set to end.
The Brazilian oil fields are simply not as profitable as the company originally thought. It is now prepared to take a 9.3 billion kroner hit and devalue the oil activities that it originally acquired from SK Energy to just 3.3 million kroner.
Adapting strategy
Maersk chief executive Nils Smedegaard Andersen was disappointed by the development.
"The SK Energy investment was made at a time when the outlook for the oil industry and oil prices were more positive than today and we had growth ambitions for our Brazilian oil business," he said.
"We have now adapted our strategy to the situation we see today, but it is of course clearly unsatisfactory that the oil volumes in the acquired fields of Itaipu and Wahoo after appraisal drilling have proved to be at the low-end of our original expectations."
