Brazilian prosecutors plan to file criminal charges stemming from the lease of an Ensco Plc offshore oil-drilling ship to Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras “in due course,” they said.
The plan to prosecute over the Ensco-Petrobras charter was mentioned in a Thursday statement presenting corruption charges stemming from the 2009 lease of another drillship, Vantage Drilling’s Titanium Explorer Rig.
In the Vantage case, prosecutors formally charged six people, including Petrobras’ former international-unit chief Jorge Zelada.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, chartered the DS-5 in 2008, when it was owned by Pride International, a company London-based Ensco purchased in 2011.
Prosecutors say more than a dozen international firms may have paid bribes to former Petrobras executives, part of a massive scheme of price-fixing and political kickbacks.
Brazil Energy Insight 
Leave a comment