With headquarters in Rio de Janeiro and offices all over the country, Petrobras is truly a Brazilian corporation. This government-owned organization employs over 36,000 people while supplying energy to the nation. In addition they sponsor many social programs with an emphasis on education and environmental preservation. 93 production platforms, 10 refineries, almost 10,000 miles of pipeline, and 7000 service stations - wherever you go, Petrobras is there, contributing toward the development of Brazil.

For 40 years, Petrobras has been a leader in byproduct distribution in Brazil, and one of the twenty major oil corporations in international ranking. It has the most advanced technology for oil production in deepwater, and in 1992 and 2001 received an award from the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC). In 1997, Brazil was admitted to the select group of 16 countries producing more than one million barrels of oil a day. CENPES, the Petrobras research center, has one of the most advanced technologies in the world, and is internationally renowned for its high proficiency.

A new strong, well-positioned structure is helping Petrobras achieve its strategic goals of growth, internationalization, profitability and productivity. We can divide the company activities into:

Downstream - Refining, transportation and trading is responsible for Petrobras being considered the ninth largest company in the downstream sector. The company supplies almost the entire demand of the Brazilian market for petroleum byproducts, always looking to increase its production capacity.

Exploration and Production - This Petrobras agency operates in research, location, identification, development, production and incorporation of oil and natural gas reserves.

Gas and Energy - This area is responsible for trading national and imported natural gas, in addition to implementing projects, in partnership with the private sector, to guarantee the offer of this fuel and energy throughout Brazil.

International - Petrobras operates in several activities abroad, and maintains consistent international operations from exploration to petroleum procurement in countries such as Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Nigeria, and the United States as well as having overseas offices in New York and Japan.

Visit Summary

The headquarters of Petrobras is housed in one of the more interesting structures in all of Rio de Janeiro. It was fascinating to see the inside of such a large company in such a unique setting. After a presentation about the companys business of oil and natural gas, and a careful discussion of the societal and environmental conservation programs run by Petrobras, a representative from the Exploration and Production team talked with us about information technology in that one area and throughout the company.

A Steering Committee at the Executive Management level makes all decisions regarding the course of the IT Department. The IT Department is housed under the Services Director in terms of the organizations structure. The Services area also includes Purchasing, Engineering and the Research Center. Though IT is not a core competency of Petrobras, they put a great deal of emphasis on using cutting edge technology and research to help decrease costs and increase revenue. They have also attained a certification as being ISO 9001 compliant.

The technical areas under the IT Department include Excellence, Management, Services and Agility. They perform many activities such as high performance computing, research and implementation of new technology, software development and the creation of an E & P database model. Much financial backing is given to the efforts of the IT Department including funding for a 3-D multimedia hub and virtual reality centers (VCR). With the VRCs Petrobras is better able to quickly analyze data that in the past would have taken months to gather and investigate. Programs like this help to eliminate unnecessary drilling by optimizing the location of the drilling which saves millions of dollars per year.

While there are a large number of outsourced IT jobs at a total of 1915 in 2003, the actual number of full-time IT staff is only 735. These numbers fluctuate back and forth over the years depending on the type of work needed at the time. Currently, many consultants were hired due to the implementation of SAP. As this project comes to a close, there will be fewer outsourced jobs. Petrobras has made an effort to develop partnerships with IT companies in order to make their work more effective and efficient though high oil revenues allow them a great deal of flexibility when it comes to cost controls.

In other technology areas, the specialized magazine "Computerworld" has rated Petrobras one of the 25 firms in the world that most effectively use network technology. Voice, data, text and video travel simultaneously through its corporate integrated network providing all employees with advanced information technology and telecommunication services, such as Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), videoconferencing and Internet and intranet services. These services are available on offshore platforms, in operational units and company offices at home and abroad, saving in terms of cost and time and increasing production.