Petrobras set fair despite global storm clouds

Petrobras chief executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli shrugged off talk that global economic uncertainty could derail the company’s ambitious plans to develop Brazil’s pre-salt play, saying the slowdown in the Brazilian firm’s investment programme had nothing to do with macroeconomics

Speaking on the sidelines of the Oil and Money Conference in London, Gabrielli said that while Petrobras’s investment this year was marginally less than planned, this was a result of delays in new-build rig deliveries, not economic jitters, or Brazil’s new local content rules. “[The slowdown] has to do with delays in deliveries of new rigs that were 100% internationally made. It has nothing to do with local content. And the [financial] crisis is affecting foreigners more than Brazilians,” he said. But he did admit that there have been “some delays in some projects”. Gabrielli added: “Really, we have slowed down the growth of the investment, not the investment itself. This has nothing to do w