Brazilian prosecutors on Friday charged two former executives of oil trader Trafigura over allegations of paying at least US$ 1.5 million in bribes to employees of Petrobras. Prosecutors said in a statement that the charges against Mariano Marcondes Ferraz, a former Trafigura top executive, and Marcio Pinto Magalhaes, a country representative, were the first of many to come against the world’s largest oil traders.
Brazil's environmental regulator on Friday denied French oil giant Total a license to drill for crude in five blocks near the mouth of the Amazon river. Regulatory agency Ibama said the license was denied “due to a set of technical problems” identified during the application process.
The average price of gasoline at Petrobras' refineries has dropped around 20% in November as of Tuesday but that decrease will not hit retail prices anytime soon. The state-run petroleum company made the announcement Monday, but gas stations were reluctant to follow suit, at least not at the same level.
Brazil has opened criminal proceedings against former leaders Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff for allegedly receiving bribes with money diverted from state-owned oil giant Petrobras. The Workers Party (PT) of the two ex-presidents has strongly denied the charges, calling them a “scandalous maneuver” with partisan motives.
Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro's future Economy Minister Paulo Guedes Monday announced Economist Roberto Castello Branco has accepted the invitation to become the next Petrobras chairman.
Brazilian markets soared for a second day on Wednesday on an opinion poll confirming right-wing presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro was gaining steam ahead of Sunday’s vote and was on track to beat his likely leftist rival in a second-round runoff.
The latest report from Global Data, FPSO Industry Outlook, suggests that a total of 74 planned and announced floating production, storage, and offloading units (FPSOs) are expected to start operations globally by 2025. Globally, South America leads with 32 planned and announced FPSO additions by 2025, including four in the Falkland Islands, followed by Africa and Europe with 17 and seven FPSOs, respectively.
Oil majors are set to gather in Rio de Janeiro this Friday to unveil bids for stakes in Brazil’s high potential offshore areas ahead of elections that are casting a cloud of uncertainty over the industry.
Petrobras, Brazil's state oil company, has agreed to pay more than US$ 853m to the United States and Brazil, ending a long-running corruption investigation. The probe stemmed from a bribery scheme at the firm, which involved millions in payments that were concealed from investors and regulators.
Brazil’s state-run oil giant Petrobras aims to raise output as much as 10% to around 2.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in 2019 and cut net debt by US$10 billion, according to Chief Financial Officer Rafael Grisolia. The world’s most indebted oil company is on course to reduce debt to US$ 69 billion by the end of this year despite falling short of its US$ 21 billion asset sales target, Grisolia pointed out.