The industrial chemist José Mauro Ferreira Coelho, who between 2020 and 2021 served as Secretary of Oil and Gas of the Ministry of Mines and Energy of the Government of President Jair Bolsonaro, was elected as the new president of the oil company Petrobras, the largest company in Brazil.
Coelho, who until this week held the presidency of the Board of Directors of the also state-owned Brazilian Petroleum and Natural Gas Administration Company (PPSA), had been elected by the company’s shareholders as a member of the Board of Directors of Petrobras, a body that subsequently elected him as president of the company.
The new president of the Brazilian energy giant was nominated for the post by the government, controlling partner of Petrobras, after Bolsonaro expressed his dissatisfaction with the continuous rises in fuel prices in Brazil promoted by the president of the state company until yesterday, the General of the Army Joaquim Silva e Luna.
The far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro, who will seek re-election to the Presidency of Brazil next October, has expressed concern about the effect of fuel prices on inflation, which in March reached an interannual rate of 11.30%, the highest in the last 18 years.
Despite the fact that the head of state says he supports Petrobras’ price policy, which sets the value of fuels internally in Brazil based on the price of crude oil on international markets, he hopes that his new president will adopt some tool that will reduce the high oscillations.
According to Council sources consulted by the press, in the speech he gave after his appointment, Coelho defended the adoption of market prices for fuels in Brazil and parity with the international price, and stated that the Government would not interfere in the company management. In a statement, Petrobras reported that its new Board of Directors elected Coelho as president of the company for an initial term of one year. “The company appreciates the important work carried out by General Joaquim Silva e Luna, for his leadership and contribution as head of the Presidency and as a new member of the Board of Directors,” the statement said.
Silva e Luna held the presidency for a year after being elected in April 2021, also due to the far-right leader’s dissatisfaction with the price policies of his predecessor, the economist Roberto Castello Branco. The Government, as controller of Petrobras, a company with shares traded on the Sao Paulo, New York and Madrid stock exchanges, has a majority on the company’s Board of Directors and enough power to impose its president and determine his policies.
Of the eleven members of the Board of Directors, eight of whom were renewed on Wednesday, eight voted for the election of Coelho as president, two voted against and one abstained. Those opposed to his election were a representative of the minority shareholders and the only delegate of the company’s employees in the body.