Petrobras names new chairman: Update

OREANDA-NEWS. Brazil's state-controlled Petrobras unexpectedly announced today that it has nominated Murilo Ferreira, chief executive of Brazil's mining giant Vale, to replace newly appointed Luciano Coutinho as chairman of the board.

A vote confirming Ferreira is planned for the company's 29 April board meeting.

Coutinho had been named to replace former finance minister Guido Mantega as chairman of Petrobras, according to a regulatory filing published late yesterday.

If confirmed, Ferreira would represent a departure from the political appointees that generally chair the oil company?s board.

Ferreira is a seasoned private-sector executive and had earlier been considered as a possible replacement for Petrobras chief executive Maria das Gracas Foster, who was replaced in February by Aldemir Bendine, a politically connected state banker.

The management shake-ups are aimed at fortifying the company in the face of a sweeping corruption scandal that has seen several former senior executives put in jail and put many others under scrutiny.

Coutinho, an economist and close ally of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, has served as a Petrobras board member since 2008 and head of Brazil's state-backed development bank BNDES since 2007.

Coutinho would remain as a member of Petrobras' board, according to today's filing.

Rousseff herself chaired the Petrobras board between 2003 and 2010, before Mantega?s tenure.

Mantega advocated domestic fuel price controls that caused chronic downstream losses at Petrobras. In December 2014, he resigned as Brazil's finance minister.