Employee-Appointed Petrobras Board Member Arrested by Police During Protest
November 03 2015 - 12:02PM
Dow Jones News
By Will Connors And Paul Kiernan
RIO DE JANEIRO--A member of Petróleo Brasileiro SA's board of
directors was arrested late Monday during a protest by striking
workers and later released, ratcheting up the tension of a strike
against a vast cost-cutting plan by the Brazilian state-run oil
company.
Deyvid Bacelar, the lone board member appointed by Petrobras
employees, said he was arrested just before midnight outside a
Petrobras refinery in northern Bahia state, and was told he was
being held for "disrespecting authority." He said he was driven
around for several hours by police before being released.
"It was surreal," Mr. Bacelar said in a brief telephone
interview.
A state police representative in the town of São Francisco do
Conde confirmed that Mr. Bacelar was arrested and later
released.
Representatives from Petrobras didn't respond to a request for
comment.
The small protest outside the Landulpho Alves refinery, Brazil's
first national refinery, was part of a nationwide strike of
Brazil's biggest oil sector union.
The Oil Workers Federation, or FUP, began the strike on Sunday
to protest a series of asset sales by Petrobras after the union
held more than three months of negotiations with the company. The
FUP represents platform and refinery workers, among others.
Petrobras said on Monday that it is "evaluating the impact" of
the strike and "taking all necessary measures to maintain
production" at the affected facilities, including activating
contingency teams. It hasn't said whether production has been
affected.
Petrobras plans to divest itself of more than $15 billion in
assets this year and next, and as much as $58 billion by 2019, as
part of wide-ranging cost cuts to deal with write-offs from a
corruption scandal and a debt load of more than $130 billion, the
largest in the energy industry.
The FUP said the cost cuts will lead to thousands of layoffs and
have a negative effect on the already weak Brazilian economy, which
depends heavily on Petrobras for jobs.
Write to Will Connors at william.connors@wsj.com and Paul
Kiernan at paul.kiernan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 03, 2015 11:47 ET (16:47 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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