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Petrobras oil rig

Brazil's Petrobras Slashes Planned Investments

Jan. 12, 2016
Ratings agency Moody's downgraded Petrobras last month for the third time in a year.

RIO DE JANEIRO - Brazil's crisis-plagued state oil giant Petrobras (IW 1000/20)  slashed its planned investments and production targets Tuesday, as plunging crude prices and a strong dollar continued wreaking havoc on its books.

Petrobras, which is at the center of a massive corruption scandal, has cut its planned investments for the period 2015 to 2019 by 24.5%, to $98.4 billion, it said in a statement.

It also lowered its production target for this year by 1.8%, to 2.1 million barrels a day. 

Petrobras is reeling from oil prices that have collapsed to lows not seen in more than a decade, together with a plunging currency, the real, and damaging revelations of a long-running kickbacks scheme in which the company overpaid billions of dollars on construction contracts.

Ratings agency Moody's downgraded Petrobras last month for the third time in a year, slapping it with junk status and warning another downgrade could be on the horizon.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016

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