The board of directors of the Brazilian state-owned Petrobras elected Caio Paes de Andrade as president of the oil company on Monday, proposed by the government of Jair Bolsonaro, amid an escalation in fuel prices.
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The board of directors elected Paes de Andrade “for the position of president of the company” until April 2023, the company said in a statement.
This is the fourth president of the oil company under Bolsonaro’s mandate, which began in January 2019.
Paes de Andrade will replace José Mauro Coelho, who resigned last Monday, before his previous dismissal by the far-right president became effective.just a month and a half after assuming.
Like his two predecessors, Joaquim Silva e Luna and Roberto Castello Branco, Coelho was fired after intense criticism from Bolsonaro of the rise in fuel prices by the company that controls the Brazilian market.
an election challenge
The constant rises threaten Bolsonaro’s popularity ahead of the October elections, in which he will seek re-election.
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The Eligibility Committee gave the go-ahead last Friday to Paes de Andrade’s candidacy to be appointed by the board as a member of the board of directors and president of the company, in accordance with company regulations.
Paes de Andrade has been a public official since the beginning of the Bolsonaro government, in which he presided over the public information technology company Sepro, between February 2019 and August 2020..
From then until now, he served as Secretary of Debureaucratization of the Ministry of Economy.
In addition, he was listed as a member of the board of directors of the public companies Pre-Sal Petroleo (PPSA) and the Brazilian Agricultural Research Company (Embrapa).
Following his appointment, the company’s common shares rose 5.98 percent on the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange.
Pricing policy: the central challenge
Bolsonaro has criticized the company’s “abusive” profit, which bases its pricing policy on international oil prices, triggered in recent months by the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Days ago, Bolsonaro assured that the new Petrobras board of directors will “study the PPI issue” (import parity price) and, eventually, change it.
For its part, the company’s Eligibility Committee consulted Paes de Andrade, who assured in writing that he had “no specific guidance (…) on an alteration of the pricing policy.”according to committee minutes.
Bolsonaro accused Petrobras directors of “betrayal of the Brazilian people” days ago, and even asked Congress to establish a parliamentary commission to investigate the company’s leaders, after increases this month of 5.18 percent in the price of the gasoline in its refineries and 14.26 percent in diesel.
Fuels rose 29.12 percent in the twelve months to May, fueling inflation of almost 12 percent in that period.
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