AmericasOffshore

Petrobras agrees to pay $508m partial settlement of taxes

San Francisco: Petrobras, Brazil’s state oil producer, has agreed to pay the country’s treasury 1.6bn reais ($508m) to settle part of a disputed tax amount. It has also decided to sell its controlling stake in an Argentine unit.

The company, formally known as Petroleo Brasileiro SA, is the world’s most indebted oil company and has been at the centre of a huge corruption scandal involving bribery for contracts.

The partial tax settlement payment includes 1.2 billion reais in back taxes and 400 million reais in fines and interest. This agreement represents only 15% of the total amount of 7.83bn reais against it.

Petrobras recently slashed its five-year spending plan by 41 percent to $130.3 billion.

Also on Friday Petrobras announced it will sell its 70% stake in Petrobras Argentina SA.

Argentine firms YPF, Pluspetrol and Tecpetrol plus Pan American Energy (BP’s Argentine venture), are among the companies planning to jointly buy the stake, a group sale that would speed up the deal and allow the unit to continue operating as a single company.

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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