Venezuela’s state-owned oil company has been on default watch for two years. Now it hopes it can buy itself, and the country, more time with a $7 billion debt swap. Petroleos de Venezuela SA wants investors holding unsecured bonds due this year and next to exchange them for notes with payments staggered over the next... Continue Reading →

Mexico will continue to hack into the budget of its oil producer next year, a move likely to mean further financial duress and continued output declines for Petroleos Mexicanos. It’s “reasonable” that the 2017 budget reduction for Pemex, as the state-owned company is known, will be around the same amount as the 100 billion pesos ($5.4... Continue Reading →

The National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) approved a temporary measure that reduces from 60% to 50% the minimum nationalization index requirement for the accreditation Suppliers of machinery and equipment, industrial systems and components in the credit operations of the Bank, called accreditation Computerised Suppliers (CFI). The amendment applies to all sectors of... Continue Reading →

A pledge by Brazil's new President Michel Temer not to run in the 2018 election enticed political rivals to back his coalition but pressure from his party might lead him to break the promise, jeopardizing the support he needs to push through reforms. Temer needs the backing of a fragile coalition of 21 parties in... Continue Reading →

  Critics say former president faced ‘impeachment with impunity’ by: Joe Leahy, São Paulo, FT Just when Brazil was looking to put the trauma of last week`s impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff behind it, the issue is threatening to make a comeback. An activist group has petitioned the senate to impeach the supreme court judge who presided... Continue Reading →

Brazil on Monday banned IESA Oil & Gas from government work for paying bribes, the third construction and engineering company barred in the massive graft and political kickbacks scandal involving contracts with state oil company Petrobras. The Ministry of Transparency, Brazil's primary anti-corruption agency, said IESA would not be able to bid for new government... Continue Reading →

The Camargo Correa Construction company is rumored to be for sale and China’s giant CCCC China Communications Construction Company is a likely candidate. French and Spanish companies are also rumored to be in the list of suitors. Three billionaire sisters are the controlling shareholders of multinational construction and cement conglomerate Camargo Correa. The conglomerate was... Continue Reading →

Reuters Brazil's federal police launched an operation on Monday to investigate fraud at pension funds of major state-run companies, carrying out seven arrest warrants, over a hundred search warrants and freezing assets worth 8 billion reais ($2.46 billion), police said in a statement. The pension funds under investigation are those of state-run banks Caixa [CEF.UL]... Continue Reading →

Pemex expected oil majors to line up for a historic chance to help it tap the giant Perdido reserves in ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. So far sign-ups for an auction have only trickled in. Days before the Sept. 5 deadline to begin the bidding process to join Petroleos Mexicanos’s first oil production joint venture... Continue Reading →