Positivootje schreef op 15 april 2014 21:50:
Vind nog een artikel over PBR vandaag op reuters als verklaring van de daling.
UPDATE 1-Brazil's Petrobras defends Pasadena refinery purchaseTue Apr 15, 2014 11:00am EDT
(Reuters) - Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA on Tuesday defended its 2006 decision to buy a refinery in Pasadena, Texas against allegations it had dramatically overpaid.
The chief executive of the company, known as Petrobras, told Congress the company had paid $554 million for the refinery assets alone, though a trading unit and other related infrastructure and legal costs brought the total bill to $1.25 billion.
President Dilma Rousseff's opponents in Congress are pushing to open a formal investigation into the purchase which they say was made for 20 times the true value of the 100,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery.
That figure comes from the $42.5 million Belgium's Astra Oil supposedly paid for the refinery in 2005. Petrobras CEO Maria das Graças Foster said on Tuesday that is false, and Astra actually paid $360 million.
Critics of the Pasadena purchase have alleged that Petrobras officials may have been bribed to win approval for the sale.
Petrobras decided to buy the refinery to maximize returns on heavy Brazilian oil in the U.S. market, buying half of the refinery in 2006 from Astra.
Refining margins fell after 2006, but began to rise again after 2012 as the U.S. shale-boom increased the value of Gulf Coast refineries, Graças Foster said. Margins are still below 2006, she said. (Reporting by Jeb Blount; Additional reporting by Anthony Boadle in Brasilia; Writing by Caroline Stauffer)