Brazilian state-run oil company Petrobras will earmark more money for exploration and production in its five-year investment plan, signalling a shift toward the more profitable activities that investors have called for. The Rio de Janeiro-based company approved a $224.7 billion investment program for the 2011-2015 period that showed significant changes in its composition but totalled little more than the $224 billion plan for the 2010-2014 period, according to a securities filing.
Petrobras will invest 57 percent of total capital expenses in extracting oil, compared with 53 percent in the previous plan, the filing said. Refining, transport and sales activities will account for 31 percent of total investment, compared with 33 percent previously. "Markets will welcome the plan if a good chunk of it goes to upstream activities - exploration, production - and less to refining," Andres Kikuchi, an analyst with Link Investimentos, a Sao Paulo-based brokerage, said before the announcement.