Britain’s BG Group has made it clear it is not ready to bail out of Brazil any time soon even though its entire portfolio is under review with concerns about its operations there.

While the company remains concerned about regulatory issues in Brazil and the actions of the government, its interim chief executive Andrew Gould made it clear that the company – heavily committed to Latin America through partnerships with Petrobras – has no intention of selling off any part of its mainly deepwater portfolio there.

Gould was responding to a question from an analyst about the future of BG’s Brazilian portfolio after it was suggested that its exposure to Brazil was so big it could represent 60% of the company’s cash flow by the end of the decade. “At what point does that get too big in terms of the portfolio?” the analyst asked, before continuing: “You mentioned issues perhaps around the regulations in Brazil that causes you concern. When do they get too big, and at what point do you need to look to sell down that asset?”

Gould replied: “On Brazil, we stated very clearly that the whole portfolio was under review and therefore you have to assume that that was part of the review. I’m not going to comment on any specific likelihood of a transaction on Brazil. I am going to say that Brazil is so big in BG’s portfolio that even a partial sale would not significantly reduce our exposure to Brazil. And we are going to have to learn, as a company, to live with that.”

He continued: “We understand the risks; we understand also the rewards that are potentially in Brazil, which, as you know, are absolutely extraordinary. But we cannot undertake an action that will significantly reduce the overall exposure of BG to Brazil, even in the event of some of other development projects coming onstream around about 2020.”

Gould added that BG does not see any execution risk in its projects in Brazil at present, but he did say: “We have certain risks around the future of some of the actions that may be taken in the government, but they are not in any way crystallized at this point in time, and I think it would be way too early for us to start looking at mitigation beyond what we’ve said in the past.”

Another analyst pressed BG on reports that Chinese national oil companies, who have been recently active in international mergers and acquisitions, may be changing their behaviour and not be as active, potentially comprising BG’s ability to maximize the value of its Brazil assets.

Gould responded: “On Brazil I’m not in any way confirming that we are conducting a sale, but I?would say that we’ve always known that for an asset the size of Brazil there would be an extremely limited range of buyers. I?don’t think that the current position of the Chinese fundamentally changes our view.”

During the second quarter results presentation Gould reported production from its Santos Basin assets is continuing to grow with additional wells and flow rates above expectations. The first FPSO on the deepwater Sapinhoa field is producing 120,000 b/d of oil from four wells. At Lula North-East, the second and third permanent production wells have been connected, and that floater is due to hit capacity by the year-end, while two more FPSOs are 95% complete. Operator Petrobras is also expecting production from the deepwater Sapinhoa North and Iracema South fields to start in the third and fourth quarters of this year