Brazil’s government announced on Monday that President Jair Bolsonaro has fired Jose Mauro Coelho, head of state-owned oil giant Petrobras, just 40 days after he was appointed to the post.
And Bolsonaro, who is running for a second term in next October’s presidential election, is under heavy pressure from inflation driven by the country’s fuel prices.
“The federal government, as the majority shareholder of Petroleo Brasileiro SA Petrobras, announces that it has decided to proceed with the change of the company’s chairman,” the Ministry of Energy and Mines said in a statement.
Thus, José Mauro Coelho becomes the third president of Petrobras to be removed in just over a year.
In a statement, the ministry said the government thanked Petrobras for his work, without explaining why he was fired.
“Brazil is currently going through a difficult period due to the impact of high volatility in fuel prices on global markets,” the statement said.
The government has signaled that its candidate for head of the state oil group is Cayo Mario Pais de Andrade, who is currently secretary of the Bureau for the Elimination of Bureaucracy in the Ministry of Economy.
Source: El Nashra