Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is losing some of his political capital, as spreading corruption investigations into the activities of his inner circle threaten his credibility. A growing number of Brazilians blame the predecessor and mentor to President Dilma Rousseff for the country’s largest-ever corruption scandal, which involves kickbacks at state-run oil... Continue Reading →

A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, Denmark’s biggest company, said profit at its oil unit dropped 86 percent in the third-quarter as energy prices fell. Maersk Oil’s net operating income after tax for the three months through September was $32 million, down from $222 million in the same period a year earlier, the Copenhagen-based company said in a... Continue Reading →

Billionaire Paolo Rocca has a new way of keeping his cash-starved oil company clients drilling: putting up funding as bank credit tightens. Rocca’s Tenaris SA, the biggest manufacturer of seamless steel tubes for the oil industry, will use its own cash to support clients next year after crude prices collapsed, the Argentine-Italian entrepreneur said Thursday on... Continue Reading →

A decade ago, when ExxonMobil Chief Executive Officer Lee Raymond was nearing retirement and looking for a successor, Rex Tillerson seemed the perfect candidate. A 53-year-old native Texan with an engineering degree and a commanding physical presence, Tillerson was an Exxon lifer who’d spent 30 years in the “upstream” side of the business, dedicated to finding... Continue Reading →

Transocean Ltd. posted a better profit than analysts expected as the world’s largest offshore rig owner races to slash costs to cope with falling demand for deep-water oil drilling. Lower taxes helped. Thanks largely to a tax rate that was half the one for the previous quarter, the company’s adjusted per-share profit for the third quarter... Continue Reading →

A four-day strike against Petrobras gathered steam on Wednesday, cutting crude and natural gas output from the No. 2 South American oil producer and threatening to become the most disruptive walkout at the state-run oil company in 20 years. Petroleo Brasileiro SA, as Petrobras is formally known, is expected to continue to report significant output... Continue Reading →

Brazil’s sovereign risk declined to the lowest level since September amid signs investor sentiment is slowly improving and as the government moves closer to a vote in Congress that will help it boost revenue. The real advanced. The cost of insuring Brazilian bonds for five years in the credit-default swaps market declined for the fourth straight... Continue Reading →

Luiz Fernando Figueiredo knows first hand what a Brazilian crisis looks like. Back in 2002, when a financial panic swept the country and pushed the government to the brink of default, Figueiredo had an up-close view of the chaos as a director at the central bank. Today’s economic and fiscal woes, he said, have none... Continue Reading →