Petrobras CEO Sees Few Board Changes This Year

Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA's board of directors should change little this year, Chief Executive Officer Pedro Parente said on Monday, amid meetings with government officials in Brasilia on the subject.

 

"It was a visit to clarify that basically we would be renewing the board, with few changes, if there are changes, but there may be," said Parente, after meeting with Mining and Energy Minister Fernando Coelho Filho.

 

The Petrobras board includes seven members representing the federal government, which is the controlling shareholder. Three other members represent common shareholders, preferred shareholders and employees respectively. Board members' terms are capped at two years but they can be reelected up to three times in a row.

 

Parente said his term as a board member also needed to be renewed so that he could continue his term as CEO through April 2019.

 

Parente said the first official meeting between Petrobras and the government to negotiate the so-called transfer of rights contract will take place on Feb. 7 between groups formed specifically to deal with the hotly debated issue.

 

Through a contract, signed in 2010, Petrobras bought the rights to extract 5 billion barrels of oil equivalent from areas the government transferred to it at a time when oil prices were high.

 

That contract, which provided for a renegotiation of the value of the rights, is being reassessed and Petrobras is widely expected to be a creditor.


(Writing by Alexandra Alper; Editing by Bernadette Baum)