Petrobras CEO satisfied with balance sheet

The CEO of Petrobras, Aldemir Bendine, said he is satisfied with the company's results for the second quarter of the year, when the company reported a net profit of $150 million. He pointed out the operational results, working along with the transparency policy the company has been developing, and the pursuit of forecasting the tax planning.

Bendine mentioned that some of the entries added to the balance sheet on the second quarter reflected back directly on the company's net income. In the first half of 2015, Petrobras reported a $1.67 billion net income, a fall of 43% over the same period last year. In the April-June period, the $150 million net income was 90% lower compared to the same quarter 2014.

The CEO explained that a non-recurring write-down affected the net result. He said Petrobras had an ongoing lawsuit on tax payments of financial transactions tax between 2007 and 2010, and he chose to pay it. “We got a good discount. The value of the lawsuit was $930 million and we managed to reduce it to $450 million,” he asserted.

As for the other three similar ongoing lawsuits, Bendine explained that because of conservatism and the current tax planning, the firm launched a provision of $740 million in the report.

The company's business performance manager, Mario Silva, pointed out the $1.27 billion free cash flow of Petrobras in the first half of 2015, while in the previous period it had been negative, at $4.47 billion. He noted that the company reached this year's oil production target of 2.79 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed).

In the first semester, Petrobras' production in Brazil and abroad had a daily average of 2.784 million boed, up 9% over the same period last year. In the pre-salt layer, in June, Petrobras reported a record of monthly oil production of 747,000 barrels/day.

Silva presented the company's projects for 2015 of $28 billion in investments. Of this amount, $12 billion has been achieved. Now in divestitures, the company has set the total of $3 billion for the year. So far the cash contribution reached $200 million. About the raising, Petrobras works with an amount of $12 billion. “We have raised $10.6 billion to date, and we expect to end the year 2015 with a balance of $20 billion cash,” he noted.

Petrobras Exploration and Production director, Solange Guedes, announced that Petrobras will take part in the 13th bidding round of exploratory blocks of the National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), but they will strategically “evaluate the opportunities.” According to her, the company is currently reviewing the bidding rules.

Translated by Amarílis Anchieta

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