Petrobras keeps downstream faith despite trend

Brazil’s Petrobras is ramping up its refining capacity, but the country’s prolific pre-salt upstream play corners the lion’s share of its huge investment programme

Petrobras has shrugged off suggestions it should follow the lead of other major oil companies and pare back its downstream presence. The Brazilian national oil company (NOC) will “refine our own crude in our own refineries and sell it in our own country”, said chief executive Jose Sergio Gabrielli. State-controlled Petrobras has agreed an ambitious $225 billion, five-year investment programme – one of the largest in the corporate world (see Figure 1). The company had hoped to kick-start the plan earlier, but the Brazilian government pressured it to trim its spending plans in the face of rising domestic inflation. Better returns from integration Originally, Petrobras is believed to have tabl