Government will appoint Petrobras board and board later this week, says Prates

The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, said this Monday (30th) that the government will present the nominees for the renewal of the company’s directors and board of directors later this week.

Prates says that there is already a list of nominees, but he didn’t want to anticipate names. After the nomination, the names must undergo evaluation by an internal committee that analyzes curricula and eventual prohibitions and conflicts.

Prates’ appointment was approved by Petrobras’ board of directors last Thursday (26) and he took office both on the collegiate board and on the company’s presidency on the same day.

This Monday, the executive participated in his first public agenda, in an event promoted by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) on the creation of an innovation hub in Rio de Janeiro.

In his speech, he reinforced that Petrobras will pay more attention to the energy transition, an issue that was already included in Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s government plan.

“Petrobras has an enormous challenge in this area,” he said. One of the changes of the new management will be the return to the renewable energy segment, abandoned in the Jair Bolsonaro government.

Prates declined to confirm the creation of an energy transition directorate, which would be occupied by Maurício Tolmasquim, his colleague on the transition team in the Lula government.

He just said that the priority now is to fill the eight existing boards at the state-owned company. Then there may be a rearrangement in the company’s management.

The board of directors will only be renewed at the ordinary general meeting of shareholders, scheduled for April. The government has six vacancies in the current collegiate, occupied by Bolsonaro’s nominees.

In a quick interview after the opening of the event, Prates was asked about changes in the fuel price policy and again he limited himself to repeating that “price policy is a matter for the government”.

In his first communication to Petrobras employees, still on Thursday, Prates reinforced the idea that the PT administration will be more focused on the company’s role as a driver of development than on remuneration for shareholders.

“The oil industry is capital-intensive and job-generating, and should be a locomotive for Brazil’s development,” he said. “We want a Petrobras that is proud of being big and of boosting all the regions and businesses where it operates.”