Brazil's Petrobras reports sharp first-quarter loss

Brazil's state oil company Petrobras, which is currently engaged in a deep restructuring process due to its recent poor performance, announced a first-quarter loss of 1.2 billion real (about $300 million).

The largest company in Brazil, accounting for a significant share of the country's GDP, announced earlier this year its new restructuring plan to leave behind the dissatisfactory economic results achieved in 2015, burdened by an adverse international economic situation and the corruption scandal that surrounds the company, EFE news reported.

The results announced on Thursday confirmed the "bad times" Petrobras is facing, after in the same period last year it recorded a profit of 5.393 million real ($1 billion).

The gross operating profit (EBITDA) of the state-run oil company in the first three months of 2016 was 21 billion real ($6 billion).

The situation of Petrobras has been particularly affected by the falling international oil price and the sharp depreciation of the real against the US dollar, which has multiplied its operational costs.

In its report, Petrobras also underlined the negative influence of their reduction of the oil and natural gas production both in Brazil and abroad as well as an 8 percent drop in derivatives sales in the domestic market.

Production of oil barrels and natural gas also suffered a drop of 7 percent from the 2.80 million units in the first quarter of 2015 to 2.61 million in the same period this year.

In recent months, Petrobras not only had to cope with plunging oil prices but also has been forced to recognize a shortfall of nearly $2 billion in its accounts.

These numbers represent another headache for the state-owned oil company which consolidated a record loss of 34.836 billion real (about $10 billion) last year.

--IANS

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