Brazil Names New CEO of Oil Company Petrobras

Brazilian President Dilma Rouseff chose Aldemir Bendine, the current Banco do Brasil Chief Executive, to be the new CEO of Petrobras on Friday.

Bendine will replace the former Petrobras CEO Maria das Gracas Silva Foster, who officially resigned from Brazil’s semi-public-owned oil company Wednesday in the midst of a corruption scandal implicating the company. Bendine will also be able to choose replacements for the five other senior executives who also quit this week.

According to the website G1 and the newspaper Folha de Sao Paulo, Bendine was Rouseff's first choice. Joao Augusto Castro Neves, an analyst for Eurasia Group, said that Bendine would be “an improvement” since he comes into the position with a mandate to change the oil giant.

In March, a former Petrobras director revealed an illegal graft scheme which diverted US$3.9 billion in funds between 2004 and 2012, funneling some of the money to politicians.

So far, 39 people have been charged in the lawsuit, including a former supplies director at Petrobras, who, as part of a plea bargain, has agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.

Rouseff campaigned on a platform of anti-corruption and was re-elected to a second term last year.

Earlier this week, Petrobras released production figures showing that the company has reached a new record in oil production in 2014, making this the sixth consecutive year of output growth.

Petrobras' board is supposed to meet Friday to officially name the incoming CEO and publicly make an announcement after markets close.

On Thursday, Eduardo Cunha, the newly-elected president of Congress, was due to set-up a new congressional inquiry into Petrobras.

​The inquiry is scheduled to start work at the end of February. It will have broad powers, including the right to summon witnesses and suspend bank, fiscal, and telephone privacy for those investigated.