Petroperú’s chairman resigns after crisis at the Peruvian state-owned company

On October 27, Humberto Campodónico, chairman of the board of Petroperú, announced his resignation from the Peruvian state-owned company after fuel supply problems due to the company’s financial instability and after the extraordinary capital contribution of US$2.3 billion by 2022.

In conversation with RPP Noticias, Campodónico said that he had communicated his decision to the Minister of Energy and Mines, Alessandra Herrera, who chairs Petroperú’s General Shareholders’ Meeting. His resignation has not yet been made official.

“We think that there are different stumbling blocks that have to be overcome. We can achieve that if we find that consensus.

“At this moment, I have proposed my resignation from the presidency of Petroperu to seek the achievement of that consensus”, said the official, after pointing out that a reorganization of Petroperu can only materialize if different controversies are overcome.

According to Campodonico, his decision would help to understand that Petroperu “understands the moment the country is going through, the moment in which the company has been given a significant amount of money and has to move forward”.

In an important fact published in the Superintendence of the Peruvian Securities Market, Petroperu announced Campodonico’s irrevocable resignation from the position he assumed on April 2.

“To move forward, we have to generate consensus -which is increasingly attacked- on the Talara refinery,” said Campodónico, regarding the modernization of the refinery, which is owned by Petroperú and should be completed in December.

Campodónico remarked that Petroperú’s officials, most of whom took office in April when the company’s board had to be restructured, would not have wanted to resort to the capital of more than US$1 billion that was granted to Petroperú this week.

“It is a significant amount that the Treasury can use for other purposes. But if this financial support was not given, the problems could be greater,” he remarked.

Petroperu’s board of directors was restructured in April in the face of a corporate governance crisis that led to the review of the company’s credit rating by the agencies S&P Ratings and Fitch after the audit of the 2021 financial statements was delayed due to conflicts with PwC.

Then, the board could not get the auditor to carry out the official review of the financial statements, generating a delay that led to instability for the Peruvian state-owned company’s lenders.

For Campodónico, the financial support that Petroperú has had to receive from the State became inevitable, “but that brings with it a very strong criticism towards the company, towards the fact of saying that it has built a “white elephant,” that it has no liquidity, that it is useless.

“We are at the crossroads of thinking how the company can move forward having a long-term consensus of different political, academic, and business forces”, said the still president of the company.

Campodónico also explained that the Peruvian government’s capital contribution of US$1 billion will be used “solely and exclusively” to finance the company’s overdue loans with financial entities, to offload fuel, and solve the current supply problem.

With information from Bloomberg

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