Brazil’s BNDES has approved a R$2.6bn (US$1.5bn) loan to state-owned Petrobras’s transport arm Transpetro for the acquisition of seven tanker vessels.

The vessels will be constructed at the Estaleiro Atlântico Sul shipyard in Northeast Brazil, to which BNDES has also offered an R$1.3bn (US$730mn) loan to finance part of the production of the tankers.

BNDES’s financing to Transpetro will cover 90% of the vessels’ value, priced after their completion and delivery.

The seven vessels will comprise of four Suezmax vessels, so named as they are the largest ships that can cross the Suez Canal, and three Aframax vessels, named as an acronym for the term “average freight rate assessment”, which are capable of operating in commercial ports.

All vessels will be used to transport crude oil and its by-products.

The project comes as part of Brazil’s growth acceleration programme’s second phase, which aims to provide US$526bn by 2014 to Brazilian infrastructure, shipping and energy projects, among others.

“In addition to the social impacts of job generation, the project has the benefit of developing and empowering [national shipyards] with the construction of high-technology tanker vessels. It will also allow the expansion of several industrial sectors, such as the metallurgical, siderurgical, chemical and electrical installations,” BNDES comments in a statement.