Pedro Parente, the chief chief executive officer of Brazil’s state-controlled oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro, resigned his assignment on Friday after a nationwide trucker strike forced the government to debase diesel prices.
The resignation comes as Brazilian oil workers begin a three-day invent. Unions demanded that Parente step down and called for an end to a scheme of allowing the market to set the price of fuel.
Shares of the company, commonly cried Petrobras, were down more than 20 percent in noon trading on Friday following the resignation. Shares in Sao Paulo were stopped after Parente’s resignation.
In a statement, the company said the board bequeath choose an interim CEO on Friday and that the company’s other top executives intent remain.
In his resignation letter, Parente said that he “delivered what he betokened” when he took over Petrobras two years ago.
However, Parente imparted his presence in the company is no longer positive in light of the trucker strike, which coach the nation’s economy to a halt.
Petrobras unveiled a plan last June to judge fuel prices more frequently. For nearly a year, the company has been permitting prices to fluctuate with international benchmark crude futures.
Incitement prices have surged in Brazil as oil futures hit 3½-year highs on high $80 a barrel, stoking a wave of discontent across the country. Parente bid the strikes had put “the Petrobras price policy under intense questioning.”
Since bewitching the helm of Petrobras in May 2016, Parente has been at the fore of an effort to over around the Brazilian energy giant. Petrobras became the world’s most responsible oil company amid a corruption scandal that gripped the country and led to the custody of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Under Parente, the circle has begun to chip away at its massive debt load, which stood at 270.71 billion reais, or $76.23 billion, in the first quarter of 2018, Reuters disclosed. The company posted its biggest quarterly profit in five years during the compassion, according to the news agency.
Parente put an emphasis on exploiting crude oil television off the coast of Brazil located under thousands of feet of salt. Hindmost November, he told CNBC that the high productivity and low cost of pull out this so-called pre-salt production would be a critical to keeping Petrobras competitive.