Petrobras is one of the major oil and natural gas companies of Brazil with extensive overseas reach.

The company's market value increased by 87 per cent in 2007.

However, the company's consolidated net income in 2007 was 17 per cent less than in 2006, primarily because of monetary exchange corrections.

Petrobras' consolidated net income in the final quarter of the same year too fell by 9 per cent over the 3Q-2007, corresponding to the reduction in the operating result.

The company's average oil and gas production remained very close to 2006 levels, since four of the five new production projects installed in 2007 only commenced operations in the final quarter.

In December 2007, however, the company set a record for a day's oil output in Brazil of 2,000,238 barrels.

Image: An oil and gas refinery of Petrobras on one islet of the Guanabara Bay, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Photograph: Vanderlei Almeida/AFP/Getty Images