Financial circles and oil circuit: financial instruments for investment in Petrobras’ activities and suppliers

Abstract

After Petrobras went public in the 1990s, the State-owned oil company intensified the use of financial instruments to fund its main activities through the capital market. Among these, we highlight capitalization through public offerings of shares, project finance, credit rights investment funds (FIDC) and equity investment funds (FIP). By analyzing the use of these instruments by Petrobras, we seek to show how this company increases its resources and expands its activities in the oil circuit, as well as anticipates capital to its extensive chain of product and service suppliers. We verified that the use of these instruments creates and reinforces commitments between agents of the oil circuit in the national territory and a wide range of private agents linked to financial services. This leads to a deepening of the logic of financial valuation in guiding the productive activities of Petrobras, also imposing it on other companies and places that participate in the oil circuit directly or indirectly.

Keywords:
Financialization; Oil production; Investment fund; Brazilian territory; Capital market