Petrobras Reports 48.6$ Profit Rise for First Quarter 2025
May 13, 2025
Brazil's Petrobras on Monday posted a net profit of 35.2 billion reais ($6.21 billion) for the first quarter, up 48.6% from a year earlier, boosted by non-recurring events, while also announcing about $2.1billion in dividends.
Without one-off events, including variations on the exchange rate between the real and the dollar, the state-run oil firm would have had a 12.1% drop in its net profit for the same period, to around 23.6 billion reais.
Petrobras Chief Executive Magda Chambriard said in a statement the firm's financial and operational results were "robust."
The oil producer's adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) stood at 61 billion reais, a 1.7% increase year-on-year. Without non-recurring effects, adjusted EBITDA stood at 62.3 billion reais, Petrobras said.
Analysts polled by LSEG had expected a 62.9 billion real EBITDA.
In a separate filing, Petrobras said its board of directors approved the payment of 11.72 billion reais (about $2.1 billion) in dividends and interest on equity to shareholders, or about 0.91 real per share.
The amount came as investments as measured by capital expenditure (capex), which has been in focus for market participants, came in at $4.1 billion from around $3 billion a year earlier, the earnings report showed.
"These investments are concentrated in pre-salt projects, especially in the Buzios and Atapu fields," said the firm's Chief Financial Officer Fernando Melgarejo in the statement, adding Petrobras has invested 22% of its guidance for the year.
Petrobras' investments got special attention from investors after they came in above the firm's own estimates in 2024, leading to fears of potentially lower dividends.
Net revenue in the quarter rose 4.6% to 123.1 billion reais, Petrobras said, slightly below the 124.9 billion reais expected by analysts.
The firm had already released an operational report last month showing a drop of 0.2% in its oil, gas and gas liquids production, to 2.77 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
($1 = 5.6699 reais)
(Reuters - Reporting by Fabio Teixeira in Rio de Janeiro and Andre Romani in Sao Paulo; Editing by Gabriel Araujo, Brendan O'Boyle and Chris Reese)
