Petroleo Brasileiro S.A.-Petrobras (PBR)

Petrobras, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, produced a record 3.34 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the second quarter of 2026, up 14.1 percent from a year earlier 4. Its newest Búzios platform, P-79, started on 1 May, three months ahead of the company's own plan 4. Net income attributable to shareholders was $10.4 billion, against $4.7 billion a year earlier, with Brent crude averaging $104.52 a barrel 3.

The finance chief, Fernando Melgarejo, credited "operational records" and higher Brent prices for one of the company's best quarters on record 3. Brent had soared above $118 a barrel after war broke out in the Middle East in late February, Reuters reported 18. Brazil answered with fuel subsidies and a 12 percent tax on crude exports, and export taxes on crude and diesel took $965 million from Petrobras's quarter 193.

The open question is the owner: Lula, whose government holds the majority of Petrobras's voting shares and elects most of its board, won a fourth term on 25 October, NPR reported 201. The company publishes its third-quarter production report on 28 October and its financial results on 10 November 5.

Petrobras was incorporated in 1953 and built its skill over more than five decades in the deep and ultra-deep waters off Brazil, where it still produces most of the country's oil and gas 1.

Its worst stretch began in 2014, when federal prosecutors in the Lava Jato, or Car Wash, investigation found contractors had overcharged Petrobras to fund improper payments 23. The company wrote off $2,527 million it had overpaid for plants and equipment, and booked impairments, write-downs of assets, of $16,823 million in 2014 and $12,299 million in 2015 23.

Revenue fell 32 percent to $97.3 billion in 2015, on lower export prices, weaker Brazilian demand and a weaker real, and the company lost $8,450 million 23. Debt had piled up since 2010 because operating cash had not covered spending, interest and dividends, and it stood at $126.2 billion at the end of 2015 23.

The repair was a sale of assets: Petrobras lost control of its fuel distributor, BR Distribuidora, in a 2019 share offering and sold 90 percent of its gas pipeline company TAG 24. In June 2019 it agreed with CADE, the competition regulator, to sell about half its refining capacity, seven refineries in all 24.

The pandemic then drove Brent to $13.2 a barrel on 21 April 2020, its lowest since 1999 24. Revenue fell 30 percent to $53.7 billion that year, and net income attributable to shareholders fell 89 percent to $1.1 billion 24.

Prices turned, and revenue reached $124.5 billion in 2022 against $84.0 billion in 2021, mostly because oil products sold for more 25. Net income attributable to shareholders hit $36.6 billion, while the company still sought to sell its fuels in Brazil at par with international prices 25.

After Lula returned to the presidency, the company replaced that pricing rule on 16 May 2023 with a "commercial strategy" weighing what a buyer's alternative supply would cost 2126. Net income attributable to shareholders fell to $24.9 billion in 2023, as Brent and diesel margins came down 26.

Lula, who had criticized how much the company paid out in dividends, fired chief executive Jean Paul Prates in May 2024, and the board appointed Magda Chambriard, a former head of the oil regulator 21. Net income attributable to shareholders fell 69.7 percent to $7.5 billion that year, mostly an accounting effect of the exchange rate on debts between Petrobras and its overseas subsidiaries 27.

In 2025 revenue slipped 2.4 percent to $89.2 billion as Brent averaged $69.1 a barrel, even as production in Brazil grew 11 percent 1. Net income attributable to shareholders rose to $19.6 billion, mainly on exchange-rate gains as the real strengthened 1.

Oil and gas production

Exploration and production, finding oil and gas and bringing it to the surface, is the core of the business: deep and ultra-deep water fields gave 98 percent of output in 2025 1. Proved reserves, the oil and gas the company is reasonably certain it can produce, stood at 12,112 million barrels of oil equivalent at the end of 2025 1.

The pre-salt, oil trapped beneath a thick layer of salt off southeast Brazil, gave 82 percent of 2025 production 1. Búzios is the giant: its platforms passed 1.2 million barrels a day on 26 June 2026, and Mero averaged about 740 thousand barrels a day in the quarter 4.

Pumping is cheap there: the lifting cost, the cost of bringing up a barrel before taxes and leases, was $4.45 in the pre-salt in the second quarter against $16.42 in older post-salt fields 3. Most of the profit comes from this segment, which earned $17.2 billion of 2025's net income attributable to shareholders, against $1.7 billion in refining 1.

Rivals compete for new acreage in the regulator's auctions, where in 2025 Petrobras and its partners won 13 concession blocks and other operators took 21 1. Its partners include Shell, which joined it with 20 percent in buying the federal government's share of the Mero and Atapu fields in December 2025 1. In October 2026 it won two more pre-salt blocks in the regulator's production sharing round, Azurita and Cruzeiro do Sul, each with 100 percent 31.

Refining, fuels and marketing

Petrobras owns 10 refineries with 1,813 thousand barrels a day of crude distillation capacity, about 79 percent of Brazil's, and processed 1,670 thousand barrels a day in 2025 1. It sells mostly to fuel distributors, and diesel brought $26.9 billion of 2025 revenue and gasoline $12.3 billion 1. Exports, mostly crude, brought $25.6 billion 1.

In the second quarter of 2026 the refineries ran at a record 101.2 percent of their rated capacity, which cut imports of oil products to 67 thousand barrels a day, the lowest on record 4. Its rivals in fuels are importers, blenders and other domestic producers, and the company says its share of diesel sales rose in 2025 as it outcompeted importers 1.

Gas, power and low-carbon energy

The gas and power arm treats gas from its own fields in plants able to process 108 million cubic meters a day, adds Bolivian and imported liquefied gas, and runs gas-fired power plants 1. It earned $268 million attributable to shareholders in 2025, down from $682 million, on lower gas prices and volumes 1.

In March 2026 eight of its plants won contracts in the government's capacity reserve auction, which pays plants to stand ready for the grid 33. In May it completed buying 49.99 percent of Lightsource bp's Brazilian business, whose operating Milagres solar plant is rated 212 megawatts peak 13. In June its board approved a plant at the Cubatão refinery to make up to 15,000 barrels a day of bio-jet fuel and renewable diesel from 2030, for about $1.2 billion 14.

Petrochemicals and fertilizers

Petrobras holds 36.1 percent of Braskem, the largest maker of thermoplastic resins in the Americas, and 47 percent of its voting capital 111. In April 2026 it signed a new shareholders' agreement for joint control with a fund advised by IG4 that was buying Novonor's stake, and Braskem later reported the sale consummated 1112.

It is returning to nitrogen fertilizers, which Brazil mostly imports: in April 2026 the board approved finishing the UFN-III urea plant at Três Lagoas, idle since 2015, for about $1 billion and a 2029 start 161.

Plants, fields and places

Its fields sit mainly in the Santos and Campos basins off southeast Brazil, and its refineries serve the southeast, south and northeast 1. Abroad it produces in Argentina, Bolivia and the US Gulf of Mexico, where it holds 20 percent of a venture with Murphy, and it explores off Colombia and Africa 1.

The people

Magda Chambriard is chief executive, and Fernando Melgarejo signs the company's reports as chief financial officer 15. The company has over 50 thousand employees, counting subsidiaries in Brazil and abroad 1.

In April 2026 the board ended the logistics and marketing chief's term and appointed Angélica Laureano 32. Marcelo Weick Pogliese became chair on 6 April 2026 after Bruno Moretti resigned, and in July Reuters described Moretti as Brazil's Planning and Budget Minister 118.

Current problems

Brazil's 12 percent tax on crude exports, set in March to pay for diesel relief, was kept in July for up to 60 days more 19. Petrobras joined the government's fuel subsidy programs, saying it keeps its pricing flexibility, but subsidy money owed to it tied up $1.9 billion of cash in the second quarter 173.

Investor claims from Lava Jato go on: a Rotterdam court rejected shareholder claims in October 2024 but found Petrobras acted illegally toward certain bondholders, and both sides appealed 1. Drilling off the Amazon's mouth is contested: Ibama, the environmental agency, refused a license in 2023, and environmental groups vowed to fight its October 2025 approval in court, AFP reported 22.

The umbrella, in words

Petrobras works through 14 direct subsidiaries, among them Transpetro for pipelines, terminals and ships, Petrobras Biocombustível for biodiesel and TBG, the Bolivia-Brazil gas pipeline company, 51 percent owned 12. Abroad, Petrobras International Braspetro in the Netherlands holds foreign businesses, and units in Rotterdam, Houston, Buenos Aires and Singapore trade oil and fuels 21.

It owns 36.1 percent of Braskem, 34.54 percent of the formaldehyde maker Metanor and half of the catalyst maker FCC with Ketjen, and 49.99 percent of Lightsource bp's Brazilian business 11113. It holds 239 exploration and production blocks and fields, 119 of them shared in consortia with other companies 1.

The federal government holds 50.26 percent of the voting common shares and 29.02 percent of all shares, which lets it elect most of the board 1. The development bank BNDES and its arm BNDESPar reported 15.90 percent of the preferred shares, which carry no general vote, after open-market sales 281. BlackRock reported 7.1 percent of the preferred shares, and GQG Partners said in July its clients held about 4.99 percent of the common shares 2930.

The Business Plan 2026-30 sets capital spending of $109 billion over five years, 72 percent of it in exploration and production 1. The company expects oil output to peak at 2.7 million barrels a day in 2028, and total production at 3.4 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in 2028 and 2029 1.

In Búzios the plan completes 11 production units by 2027, with P-80, P-82 and P-83, each able to produce 225,000 barrels a day, due that year 13. Raia follows in 2028, Atapu 2 in 2029 and Sépia 2 in 2030, the second-quarter project table shows 3.

Off Sergipe, two platforms built by SBM Offshore are expected to produce more than 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent, the first, P-87, with oil from 2030 15. The company plans to raise refining capacity from 1.8 million to 2.1 million barrels a day by 2030 inside existing refineries, with the RNEST refinery's second train due in 2029 13.

Exploration gets $7.1 billion over the five years, aimed at Brazil's southern and southeastern basins, the Equatorial Margin in the north and assets abroad 1. The plan assumes Brent at $63 a barrel in 2026 and $70 in 2030 1.

Its share of the Mero shared reservoir rises from 38.60 percent to 41.40 percent in 2027, and of Atapu from 65.687 percent to 66.38 percent, after the December 2025 purchase 1. In Colombia it operates the Sirius gas discovery with 44.44 percent beside Ecopetrol, and gas sales contracts signed on 12 December 2025 await the project's final investment decision 1. The Namibian stake still needs government approvals, notably from Namibia's Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy 1.

Its policy pays out 45 percent of free cash flow while gross debt stays within the plan's ceiling 10. For the second quarter the board approved R$17.4 billion, paid on 23 November and 21 December 2026 10. Third-quarter results come on 10 November, with a webcast on 11 November 5.