Petrobras

Petrobras (Petróleo Brasileiro Sociedade Anônima) is a Brazilian oil company. Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. was incorporated in 1953 and started operating with the handover of the assets from the former National Petroleum Council (Conselho Nacional do Petróleo-CNP):

• Oil fields with a production capacity of 2,700 barrelss a day (bpd)
• Assets from the Oil Shale Industrialization Committee
• Mataripe refinery in Bahia, processing 5,000 bpd
• Refinery under construction in Cubatão, São Paulo
• Twenty tankers with a carrying capacity of 221,295 tons
• Recoverable reserves of 15 million barrels
• Byproduct consumption of 137,000 bpd
• Fertilizer plant under construction (Cubatão, São Paulo)

The company has been a leader in byproduct distribution in Brazil for 40 years, and one of the twenty major oil corporations in the world. It has the most advanced technology for oil production in deepwater, and in 1992 and 2001, received an award from the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC).

In 1997, Brazil was admitted to the select group of 16 countries producing more than one million barrels of oil a day. And that same year, law #9478 was decreed to open up the oil industry to private enterprise.

The outcome of the law was the creation of the National Petroleum Agency (ANP), in charge of regulating, contracting and supervising the sector's operations; and the National Council for Energy Policy, an agency to draft a public energy policy.

Petrobras, in tune with the changing scenario, is ready for free competition, increasing new business prospects, and having further business autonomy.

The explanation for the success of Petrobras lies in the efficiency of its units all over Brazil: Refineries, exploration & production, pipelines, terminals, regional management and its large tanker fleet.