Petrobras's Foster to replace Gabrielli as CEO

01-23-2012 | Bloomberg

 

Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the world's fifth-biggest oil producer by market value, plans to name its natural gas and energy chief, Maria das Gracas Foster, as chief executive officer.

    Foster, 58, will replace Jose Sergio Gabrielli, 62. Petrobras Chairman and Finance Minister Guido Mantega will present Foster's name to the board of directors of the state-run company on Feb. 9, according to a regulatory filing today.

    The nomination of Foster, who ran Petrobras's fuel distribution unit before heading the gas and energy division, will benefit the company at a time output growth has missed targets, Bradesco analyst Auro Rozenbaum said in an interview.

    "She is a politically strong figure, connected to the president," Rozenbaum said in a telephone interview from Rio de Janeiro. "Without a doubt, because of her technical profile for a company like Petrobras it may end up having some advantages."

 

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FARC attack on Colombia radar delays flights

01-22-2012 | Reuters

 

An attack by Colombian FARC rebels on a radar installation in Cauca province delayed flights in the south of the Andean nation as well as some bound for neighbouring Ecuador and Panama, the civil aviation authority said on Saturday.

    Guerrilla fighters from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia launched homemade missiles and gas cylinders at the installation, killing a police officer guarding the radar, officials said.

    The attack underscores the ability of the FARC, as the drug-funded group is known, to harm the nation's economic infrastructure and civilian population even after a decade-long US-funded offensive severely weakened the group and killed a number of its leaders.

    The radar, which spans about 186 miles, provides coverage not only for civil aviation but for the fight against drug trafficking in the country.

    Repairs on the radar will take several months, Santiago Castro, director of the civil aviation authority, said.

    "The solution to prevent problems to the security of flights is to space them out," Castro told reporters. "We don't know if there will be reductions in flights, but there will be delays."

    The FARC is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe. The military offensive has dealt major blows to the FARC in the past several years and cut cocaine output in one of the world's top producers of the drug.

    President Juan Manuel Santos has pushed through a range of reforms to tackle structural economic defects that prompt support for the FARC, such as returning land stolen by right-wing paramilitaries and rebels to displaced peasants.

    "When a group like the FARC attacks sites that cause problems for the civilian population, it's a demonstration of its weakness and desperation because it's affecting the civilian population that it claims to be its base of support," Santos said on Saturday.

    Security improvements have drawn record foreign investment to the Colombian economy, mostly into the oil and mining industries. Still, the security gains mask deep-seated issues like unequal land distribution, rural poverty, flourishing criminal gangs and weak institutions.

    Both the FARC guerrillas and the government have called for peace but Santos says the Marxist rebels must first prove they want peace and release all hostages and stop attacks. The FARC has refused to disarm.

 

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Chevron loses bid to block Ecuador award

01-20-2012 | Bloomberg

 

Chevron Corp. lost another bid before a US appeals court for an order blocking enforcement of an Ecuadorean court's $18 billion environmental damages verdict.

    Chevron, the second-largest US oil company, had asked a panel of judges at the US Court of Appeals in New York to set aside its Sept. 19 ruling rejecting a trial judge's decision in March that blocked collection of the Ecuadorean judgment.

    In a related decision, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan this month refused Chevron's request to restrain Ecuadorean assets that could be seized as part of the Ecuadorean judgment.

    Chevron was ordered on Feb. 14 to pay as much as $18 billion in compensatory and punitive damages for Texaco Inc.'s alleged dumping of toxic drilling wastes in the Ecuadorean jungle from 1964 to about 1992. The ruling came in an 18-year- old lawsuit decided by a judge in Lago Agrio, a provincial capital near the Colombian border.

    On Jan. 3, an Ecuadorean appeals court upheld the February ruling "in all of its parts, including the conviction for moral reparation or its alternative and costs," according to the decision. Chevron can appeal the decision to the next level of Ecuador's judiciary, a company spokesman said at the time.

    The US appeals panel in September rejected Kaplan's March decision blocking collection of the Ecuadorean judgment pending resolution of a lawsuit alleging that the plaintiffs engaged in fraud to win the case. The appeals court hasn’t issued a full opinion in the matter.

    Chevron denies wrongdoing in the Lago Agrio lawsuit. The company says Texaco cleaned up its share of the pollution at its former oil fields, which were taken over by PetroEcuador, Ecuador's state-owned oil company.

    Chevron says it was released from any future liability by an agreement between Texaco and Ecuador. Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001.

    The San Ramon, California-based company alleged in a US suit before Kaplan that lawyers for the Ecuadoreans conspired to fabricate evidence. Attorneys for the Latin American plaintiffs said the lawsuit is an unjustified attempt to derail the pollution lawsuit damages.

 

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