Petrobras reported this Monday (20) that José Mauro Coelho has resigned from the presidency and also from the board of directors of the company. The announcement came nearly a month after the government pressured the executive branch over fuel price readjustments.
Shortly after the announcement, Petrobras said in a new statement that the Company’s current Executive Director of Exploration and Production, Fernando Borges, will be the interim President until Coelho’s successor is elected and sworn in.
Coelho’s likely successor is Caio Paes de Andrade, secretary for debureaucratization at the Ministry of Economy. He had been nominated for the position by the government a month ago, but the exchange got caught in the legal procedures set out for the replacement.
José Mauro Coelho, the third managing director of the stateowned company in Jair Bolsonaro’s government, stayed in office for 68 days the company’s secondshortest tenure since the end of the military dictatorship.
His departure has been expected since May 23, when the Department of Mines and Energy announced that the company’s third leadership change would take place. At the time, the ministry claimed that “several geopolitical factors, known to all, have an impact not only on the price of gasoline and diesel, but on all energy components.”
Also, the two executives who preceded José Mauro in the Petrobras presidency Roberto Castello Branco and General Joaquim Silva e Luna left command of the stateowned company in the face of pressure from the government itself due to high fuel prices.
Petrobras’ pricing policy follows the same one adopted by the Michel Temer government in 2016. It is subject to the international parity criterion, which means that fuel prices take into account the price of a barrel of oil on the international market and also dollar fluctuations.
However, President Jair Bolsonaro has urged the three executives he has appointed to head Petrobras to contain fuel prices. With a view to the reelection, he sharpened the tone of the criticism, calling the stateowned company’s profit “rape” and urging the company not to make any readjustments.
Understand the rise in fuel prices
José Mauro Ferreira Coelho was the third president of Petrobras in the Bolsonaro government.
The first to take charge of the stateowned company during President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration was economist Roberto Castello Branco, appointed shortly after the 2018 elections.
Castello Branco was appointed to the post in January 2019 and fired in February last year by the president, who claimed to be unhappy with fuel price adjustments during the economist’s tenure.
The name appointed to replace Castello Branco was General Joaquim Silva e Luna. The military took office in April 2021 and remained in office until March of this year.
The general served 343 days and was fired in April of this year for following market logic in setting prices.
After Silva e Luna left, the government even gave the names of economist Adriano Pires and businessman Rodolfo Landim to take command of the stateowned company, but both said they could not take the positions.
In April, the government appointed José Mauro Coelho to head the stateowned company. The Executive took over the presidency from Petrobras on the 14th of last month.