Brazil’s Petrobras, the world’s most indebted oil firm, which aims to divest about $15b in non-essential assets by the end of the year in a bid to cut some of the company’s $130b debt burden, has kicked off the sale of a network of liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and thermal power plants, Reuters reported. In a securities filing, it informed about this sales as part of its efforts to cut debt.
Brazilian media also reported that the country’s General Prosecutor, Rodrigo Janot, had asked the Supreme Court to arrest three senators tied to the state-controlled oil company scandal.
All three were considered allies of the recently deposed Workers’ Party and are members of the big tent Democratic Movement Party. The Supreme Court has not yet responded to the call, but the move shows the investigations into Petrobras are ongoing and heating up, Bloomberg wrote.
Brazil’s biggest oil firm was the source of a decades-old scandal that had billionaire private sector firms colluding with the ruling Workers’ Party and other members of the coalition government to rig countries and garner bribes for political campaigns. The scandal eventually led to the impeachment of President, Dilma Rousseff, who was chairwoman of the beleaguered oil firm up until 2010 when she assumed the presidency.