Petrobras (PBR 0.72%) is going on a spending diet. Today, the company unveiled its business and management plan for 2014 to 2018, revealing that it will shrink its capital expenditures by $16 billion. All told, the Brazilian oil major anticipates it will spend nearly $221 billion on investments during the five year-period, down from $237 in the previous half-decade plan.
Much of the cost-cutting will come in the downstream division, which is slated to receive just under $39 billion in accordance with the new initiative. In the preceding plan, the unit received almost $65 billion.
The move comes in the wake of Petrobras' release of its Q4 and fiscal 2013 results. For the quarter, revenue grew by 10% on a year-over-year basis to 81 billion reals ($35 billion); however, net income declined 19% to 6.3 billion reals ($2.7 billion). Those figures for the entirety of 2013 were, respectively, 305 billion reals ($130 billion), a gain of 8% from 2012's figure, and 23.6 billion reals ($10 billion), a year-over-year increase of 11%.
