Brazil government nominates six Petrobras board members

The Brazilian government has nominated six potential board members of Petrobras, to be voted on at the upcoming extraordinary general meeting.

Petrobras said on Monday in a securities filing that it received official letters from the Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Ministry of Economy with six nominations for the members of the company’s board of directors.

The six names nominated are Joaquim Silva e Luna, Eduardo Bacellar Leal Ferreira, Ruy Flaks Schneider, Márcio Andrade Weber, Murilo Marroquim de Souza, and Sonia Julia Sulzbeck Villalobos.

It is worth noting that Villalobos is the only nominee by the Ministry of Economy while the other members were nominated by the Ministry of Mines and Energy.

Another interesting fact is that two of the six names come from military backgrounds. Silva e Luna, the man nominated to also be the company’s next CEO, is one of them. He is a retired military general who had been running the Itaipu hydroelectric dam on the border with Paraguay. It is also worth noting that he has no oil and gas experience whatsoever.

The other name is Eduardo Bacellar Leal Ferreira, an admiral and until January 2019 the Commander of the Brazilian Navy but unlike Silva e Luna he has oil and gas experience as he is the current chairman of Petrobras.

Two – Márcio Andrade Weber and Murilo Marroquim de Souza – were previously employed at Petrobras for 16 and 23 years, respectively.

These nominations are the result of five current board members deciding to step down as a reactionary move to the ousting of current CEO Roberto Castello Branco by Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro.

Namely, João Cox Neto, Nivio Ziviani, Paulo Cesar de Souza e Silva, Omar Carneiro da Cunha Sobrinho, and Leonardo Pietro Antonelli stated earlier this month that they would not be standing for re-election at the next annual general meeting, effectively resigning from the company.