Why Lula keeps meddling with Latin America’s top oil company

On February 1st Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, reached a value of $551bn reais ($112bn) on the country’s stockmarket, a record in the local currency. Its shares have outperformed those of ExxonMobil and Chevron in the past year. Months before, it had laid out an investment strategy costing $102bn over the next five years, the largest such plan for nearly a decade. Most of the investment will go to the expansion of offshore basins in the country’s south-east, known as the pre-salts, and the development of new offshore fields in the north-east. The expansion could help Brazil become the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer by the end of the decade, up from seventh today, according to Rystad Energy, a consultancy.