Scandal-hit Petrobras first quarter results dip 1.1%

17/05/2015 00:42 AST

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Brazil’s state-owned Petrobras oil, mired in a graft scandal, on Friday posted Q1 revenue down 1.1 per cent on the same period last year, indicating it may turn a corner after a year of woe.

The company reported net income of 5.330 billion reais (Dh6.5 billion, $1.778 billion) on sales of 74.4 billion reais.

Last year’s first quarter results had brought net income of 5.393 billion reais, the dollar value translating at the time to $2.420 billion — but the real has shed around a fifth of its value this year against the US currency unit.

Last year’s result was a 30 per cent fall on 2013.

Petrobras financial director Ivan de Souza Monteiro welcomed the result and said it put the company back on a “normal” path after the tribulations of the past year and a quarter.

“When this board took over there was not even the perspective of getting an (externally) audited balance,” Monteiro told a news conference in Rio.

“With this normalisation we can start to get back to normal life.”

He said he wanted to “win back the confidence of the market,” but added the company still faces hurdles.

“We are very satisfied with the results obtained although challenges lie ahead,” he said.

Petrobras took a write-down of some $17 billion in reporting delayed Q4 results last month, after the kickbacks scandal, which has embroiled dozens of politicians.



Market capitalisation

Prosecutors estimate that some $2.1 billion in bribes was moved as part of the scheme.

The write-down also took into account cost overruns and the impact of the slump in crude prices in recent months.

Petrobras’ market capitalisation value has slumped by tens of millions of dollars since the kickbacks scandal broke 14 months ago.

Share value has decreased by more than half as the company battles a mountain of debt and struggles to meet production goals.

“In the first quarter of 2015, a 20.8 per cent depreciation of the real over the dollar affected the company result, worth and indicators,” Petrobras said in a statement.

The company said earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation rose an annualised 50 per cent to 21.52 billion reais.

It lifted production 11 per cent over the period to 2.8 million barrels of crude and natural gas a day, compared to 2.5 million in the previous year.

Last year’s final quarter results, audited externally by PricewaterhouseCoopers, gave an annual loss — the first since 1991 — of 21.6 billion reais ($7.2 billion).

Those results calculated the losses incurred from the kickbacks, which spanned from 2004 to 2012.

Petrobras said in January it considered it “impossible” to calculate “correctly, completely and definitively” the damages resulting from the scandal.

Brazilian investigators say they are confident they will recuperate some $360 million in cash siphoned off during the scandal, the worst in Brazil’s history.

Before Friday’s results, Petrobras ordinary shares closed up 2.3 per cent on the Sao Paulo stock market, adding 1.04 per cent.

AFP