MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazilian petrochemical firm Braskem SA said on Friday it will hold a general meeting on Aug. 4 to appoint a new chairman, after its current chairman was arrested for alleged involvement in a corruption scheme, said Reuters.
The new chairman will be Newton de Souza. He will replace Marcelo Odebrecht, chief executive officer of construction company Odebrecht SA, who was arrested last month for alleged involvement in a kickback scheme at state-run oil company Petrobras.
Petrobras admitted recently that it had found irregularities in the approval of a contract to provide naphtha to Braskem some six years ago. It has been suggested that bribes were paid by Braskem for a deal allowing it to pay below-market rates for naphtha, causing losses to Petrobras, a claim that Braskem denies. Half of Braskem's production costs are from naphtha with Petrobras providing about 70 per cent of the Brazilian firm's needs.
As MRC informed earlier, Brazil's state-run oil firm Petrobras confirmed on Tuesday it had found irregularities in the approval of a 2009 contract to provide naphtha to petrochemical company Braskem SA and had reported the issue to public prosecutors.
Headquartered in Rio de Janeiro, Petrobras is an integrated energy firm. Petrobras' activities include exploration, exploitation and production of oil from reservoir wells, shale and other rocks as well as refining, processing, trade and transport of oil and oil products, natural gas and other fluid hydrocarbons, in addition to other energy-related activities.
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