Brazil’s Petrobras Ordered to Pay US$622 Million for Contract Breach

By Lise Alves, Senior Contributing Reporter

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Oil giant of Brazil, Petrobras, will have to pay Cayman Island based Vantage Drilling International, US$622.02 million after the Brazilian company rescinded the drilling contract between the two companies, according to Vantage Drilling.

“We are very pleased with the Tribunal’s decision to enforce our drilling contract with Petrobras,” stated Vantage Drilling’s Chief Executive Officer, Ihab Toma, in a statement released after the decision.

Vantage contracts drilling units, related equipment and work team to drill oil wells and natural gas wells for large national and independent oil and natural gas companies around the world.

According to an international arbitrage court, Petrobras breached a drilling service agreement for the Titanium Explorer in 2009.

According to news media G1 in the disclosure of results for the first quarter of 2018, Petrobras identified the dispute with Vantage Drilling as a ‘non-provisioned legal proceeding’ which means that the oil giant did not expect to lose the court case and/or could not estimate the amount it would have to pay if it lost.

In 2015 Vantage Drilling was linked to the Lava Jato (Carwash) corruption investigation, with federal judge Sergio Moro accusing the foreign company of paying bribes to former Petrobras executive Jorge Zelada and the company’s international area Eduardo Vaz da Costa Musa for contract benefits.

In 2016, Zelada was sentenced to twelve years in prison for passive corruption and money laundering. Musa was convicted to eleven years and eight months of imprisonment for passive corruption and money laundering.