PETROBRAS NEW INFO:

Just got off the phone with the Federacao Unica dos Petroleiros....here's their take on what is going to happen going foreword

First of all..the news was wrong again...there is another meeting today and talks / negotiations are currently under way to alleviate the strike.

They asked for a 30% increase in wages and more disclosure on safety, but Petrobras replied that they would only raise the wage by 6%....according to the union, the inflation rate was 8.30% over the last year and they are outraged by the counter-offer of only 6%....I asked what Petrobras could do to make the workers return...she said that they only needed to offer about a 10-12% increase. She said that after the counter offer came back the union would disseminate the information to the workers who would then vote on whether they should return to work.

As far as refinery operations she claims that there has been little change in operations and that the last shift of workers that went in on Tuesday have been taken captive / hostage and that they have been forced to keep output flowing. She believed that the output would fall off because the workers lacked "conviction" and wanted to leave...she thought they may break something in the refinery or revolt in order to gain freedom. The FUP is seeking legal action against Petrobras to get the workers out, but she said that she didn't really think they could get them out...so it doesn't look like the workers will leave anytime soon and the only way the refineries are going to ramp down is if the workers sabotage the system.

When I asked her if she thought the strike would continue she said that she thought that Petrobras would make a counteroffer today and that if it was greater than 10% the workers would likely agree to work. She said that there was much anger among the workers and that another bad counter offer would be "very destructive"

My general impression was that the strike will go on only if Petrobras doesn't play nicely. One interesting discrepancy was that oil production, according to the union, was down 80% as opposed to the earlier 60%, but we have no way of substantiating that due to the fact it's Petrobras word against their word.