MOSCOW (MRC) -- Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petrobras said late on Tuesday that four of its board members would leave at the end of their terms, requesting not to be reappointed after President Jair Bolsonaro decided to replace the company’s chief executive, reported Reuters.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as the company is formally known, disclosed messages from the board members in a securities filing stating their reasons for effectively resigning.
After complaining about high fuel prices, Bolsonaro has appointed Joaquim Silva e Luna, a retired military officer who had been running the Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the border with Paraguay, to replace Chief Executive Roberto Castello Branco.
The move revived old concerns over government interference in Petrobras and its fuel pricing policy, as has happened under previous administrations.
Branco will officially step down at a shareholders meeting, whose date has yet to be set. The four board members would also step down at that time.
Two of the board members said they could not accept reappointment because of personal reasons, while another said his term was being “interrupted unexpectedly” without explanation.
A fourth board member said that he would not continue because of “upper management changes,” which he said weren’t in-line with best management practices.
As MRC informed before, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras is seeking 800 million reais (USD152 million) in compensation from engineering group Odebrecht in arbitration proceedings over its alleged violation of the shareholders agreement in petrochemical company Braskem.
We remind that Petrobras may need more than a year to divest its stake in Braskem, said Andrea Almeida, Petrobras CFO, in early July, 2020. She said during the company"s recent webinar that Petrobras plans to give more time for potential investors to make offers for the company"s assets, including for its refineries and stakes at its petrochemical and fuel distribution affiliates. The divestment of Petrobras"s stake in Braskem in 2020 would be desirable but "might not be possible" as the COVID-19 pandemic has changed market conditions, she said. The company plans to close part of its refinery sales in 2021. In December, Roberto Castello Branco, CEO of Petrobras, said that he wants to sell the company"s stake in Braskem within a year. Petrobras owns 32.15% of Braskem.
We also remind that Braskem is no longer pursuing a petrochemical project, which would have included an ethane cracker, in West Virginia. And the company is seeking to sell the land that would have housed the cracker. The project, announced in 2013, had been on Braskem"s back burner for several years.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 2,220,640 tonnes in 2020, up by 2% year on year. Only shipments of low density polyethylene (LDPE) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) increased. At the same time, polypropylene (PP) shipments to the Russian market reached 1 240,000 tonnes in 2020 (calculated using the formula: production, minus exports, plus imports, excluding producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply of exclusively PP random copolymer increased.
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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