RIO DE JANEIRO, Feb 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Brazil’s state oil company
Petrobras said on Wednesday it registered its first profit in five years,
making 25.8 billion reais ($7.058 billion) in 2018.
Adjusted profit — before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization
— was a record 114.9 billion reais, Petrobras said in a statement.
“The 2018 Petrobras results were unquestionably the best in many years,”
said the company’s new president, Roberto Castello Branco, who was appointed
by President Jair Bolsonaro after he assumed office in January.
Petrobras had already seen something of a recovery in 2017, when losses
were down to 446 million reais, a massive reduction on the previous three
years, in which the company lost a combined 70 billion reais.
“The solid result reflects factors such as better margins in the sale of
derivatives in Brazil and in crude exports, alongside the increase in the
price of the Brent barrel and the appreciation of the dollar,” said the
Petrobras statement.
The company’s debt dropped 18 percent to $69.4 billion.
The 2018 results came despite the payment of $853 million in damages in
the third quarter to settle a collective claim from the United States related
to the biggest corruption scandal in Brazil’s history.
Large construction companies had paid bribes to politicians to secure
contracts with Petrobras, which knowingly overpaid on those deals.
The Car Wash investigation resulted in the impeachment of then-president
Dilma Rousseff in 2016, while her fellow leftist predecessor Luiz Inacio Lula
da Silva was jailed for accepting a bribe.
Far right Bolsonaro campaigned on a hard line against corruption and crime
and his victory in October’s election was in part attributed to the Car Wash
investigation.