Brazil oil giant posts losses of 4.9 bln USD in 3Q

Brazil's state-controlled oil giant Petrobras announced Thursday losses of 16.4 billion reals (4.9 billion U.S. dollars) in the third quarter of 2016, the company's third largest quarterly loss ever registered.

"The figures are mainly due to the impairment of assets and investments in associated companies amounting to 15.7 billion reals (4.7 billion U.S. dollars)," Petrobras said.

The company attributed the negative results to the reassessment of several company assets, whose value was deemed lower than in the past.

Without those, Petrobras would have registered profits of almost 600 million reals (178.5 million U.S. dollars), said the company's executive manager Mario Jorge da Silva.

Petrobras has gone through a rough patch in the past few years, caused by a combination of key factors, including the fall of oil prices in the global market, the company's high indebtedness, and the corruption scandal uncovered by the Brazilian Federal Police's Operation Carwash.

The difficulties forced Petrobras to begin a voluntary redundancy plan. According to Silva, in one year Petrobras has reduced the number of employees by 10 percent.

In the second quarter this year, Petrobras had registered profits of 370 million reals (110.1 million U.S. dollars). In the third quarter of 2015, the company had losses of 3.7 billion reals (1.1 billion U.S. dollars). Endi