Lula must decide on a new Petrobras president by early December

President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should decide on the name of the new Petrobras president by the beginning of December, said this Tuesday (22) Senator Jean Paul Prates (PT-RN), member of the transition group for the area of energy.

To Reuters, Prates said he had delivered a memorandum to Lula and talked to him about the importance of nominating the oil company’s new CEO by early December. He did not elaborate on the subject, but the measure would seek to enable a faster change in the command of the state-owned company.

“He [Lula] is aware, from Egypt he arranged to talk to me. It was supposed to be yesterday but he postponed it because of the surgery so it must be tomorrow [quarta-feira]”, said.

“He has until the beginning of December to do it the regular way. I believe he will make a decision by then. If not, there are other ways, alternatives, to make the change”, he added.

Prates himself has been seen as one of the possible nominees for the post of CEO of the company. He said that he will have a meeting with Lula to discuss the matter.

The senator was a key energy policy adviser during Lula’s campaign, but his appointment to Petrobras may face compliance hurdles due to his 2020 Natal mayoral campaign. electoral campaign in the last 36 months.

The senator’s comments were made after a meeting this morning with the Minister of Mines and Energy, Adolfo Sachsida.

Prates also stated that there will be a meeting with Petrobras representatives, probably with the company’s president, Caio Paes de Andrade, in which the new government’s transition team will ask that the oil company’s current management suspend ongoing strategic processes.

“We are going to have a specific meeting about Petrobras, probably with the president and the current structure, in order to ensure the same thing: suspend all processes that are more structural, strategic in relation to the company at this moment. Those that are starting recently. So that people can make decisions more calmly,” Prates told reporters.

The senator did not say when the meeting with Petrobras will take place.

After leaving the meeting with Sachsida, Prates also said that the Ministry of Mines and Energy committed itself not to take strategic decisions or start new projects until the change of government.

“The minister made the team available, made a commitment to suspend all more structural, more strategic decisions until the government passes”, he said upon arriving at the CCBB, headquarters of the transitional government, in Brasília.

The statement, however, was made one day after the ministry’s CNPE (National Council for Energy Policy), decided to maintain the current mandatory blend of 10% biodiesel in diesel sold at service stations until March, which infuriated the biodiesel industry. and parliamentarians who defend the sector in Congress.

Prates also said that there will be an assessment with the tax area of ​​the new government on issues related to the PIS/Cofins levied on fuels.

These taxes were zeroed by the government of President Jair Bolsonaro until the end of this year.

“This process we will evaluate with the economic team as well. It is not just Mines and Energy… We know that the impact is much smaller than the ICMS”, he said, who considered the meeting to be good and productive.