Good morning. Petrobras just recorded the biggest quarterly profits in its history. A new plan to take doctors to remote Brazilian areas. The Supreme Court v. Operation Car Wash. Enjoy your read!
Petrobras has best quarterly results in history
Brazil’s state-owned company Petrobras has reported BRL 18.8bn in profits over Q2 2019—the best quarterly result in its history. The main drive was the sale of a pipeline network to a French-Canadian consortium for BRL 33bn. CEO Roberto Castello Branco informed that the company concluded USD 15bn of divestments in June, and said that “much more is to come.”
Why it matters. Just a few years ago, Petrobras was in trouble. Years of poor management and rampant corruption within its ranks turned the company into the most-indebted oil company in the world with liabilities of USD 127bn as of September 2015. Its debts now stand at USD 76bn, with an average maturity of 10.25 years and a stable average cost of 6% a year. The recovery began in 2016, with the nomination of former CEO Pedro Parente—who started to promote divestments and pegged fuel rates in Brazil to international oil fares, ending the price-control policies that helped deplete the...