Prates privileges Petrobras employees in the first list for directors

The president of Petrobras, Jean Paul Prates, announced this Thursday (2) his first nominees for the direction of the state-owned company. The list has five names, four of them with a career in the company. There are still three spots to fill.

The names still need to be approved by the internal committee that evaluates nominations for the company’s senior management. Afterwards, they will be evaluated by the board of directors, which is responsible for appointing directors.

Prates took office last week, after approval of his name. On Monday (30) he said he would announce names for the board this week. The government should also anticipate nominations for the collegiate.

Engineer Joelson Falcão, who joined Petrobras in 1987, was appointed to the Exploration and Production department, which concentrates most of the investments. He currently occupies the Executive Management of Safety, Environment and Health.

For the Production Development department, which purchases platforms, Prates appointed Carlos Travassos, who has been with the company for 33 years. Today, he is executive manager of Surface Systems, Refining, Gas and Energy.

The department responsible for setting fuel prices, Marketing and Logistics, was reserved for chemical engineer Claudio Schlosser. He joined Petrobras in 1987 and made his career occupying positions in the state’s refining area.

Also with experience in refineries, chemical engineer William França was appointed to the Refining and Gas board, which should gain new status in the Lula government, which has already announced its desire to expand fuel production capacity in the country.

The only external name indicated so far is Carlos Barreto, for the Directorate of Digital Transformation and Innovation. According to Petrobras, he has experience in banks such as the Federal Reserve and Banco Mitsubishi and was a project manager at companies such as IBM and Dun & Bradstreet.

The three departments still to be named are Financial and Investor Relations, Institutional Relations and Sustainability, and Governance and Compliance.

The list generated discomfort among trade unions linked to the company, due to the inclusion of Travassos, one of the direct subordinates of the current director of Production Development, João Augusto Rittershaussen, considered to be executing the strategy for purchasing production platforms abroad.

In a note in which it avoids naming names, the FUP (United Federation of Petroleum Workers) said that in recent years it has observed “an expressive contingent of company executives, if not most of them, engaged in the destruction of Petrobras”.

In the text, the entity says it understands that Prates has highlighted proposals defended by the union, but that it will remain “requiring the government what it considers to be important for the company”.

“We will follow the management of Jean Paul Prates and we will permanently demand the implementation of these proposals”, says the general coordinator of the FUP, Deyvid Bacelar, who was a colleague of the president of Petrobras in the transition team of the elected government.

“For Petrobras to return to being an integrated company, operating throughout the national territory and valuing its workers and the national industry, many changes will have to be carried out in the company”, he concludes.