São Paulo – Exploration of oil in the pre-salt layer should stimulate the growth of several sectors of the industry, generating over 2 million jobs by 2020. The estimate is included in a study presented this Tuesday (16th) by the managing director of the National Organization of the Petroleum Industry (Onip), Eloi Fernández e Fernández.
Fernández was one of the participants in a debate on the pre-salt layer promoted in São Paulo. He claimed that the oil and gas production chain will account for the largest investment in Brazil up until 2014.
According to Fernández, out of the 611 billion reals (US$ 379.2 billion) due to be invested by the Brazilian industry over the next four years, companies in the sector will account for 378 billion reals (US$ 234.6 billion), or 62%. The figure will represent half the total Brazilian investment in infrastructure by 2014.
According to him, the bulk of that figure will come from Petrobras. The state-owned oil company announced a US$ 270 billion investment plan, due to last until 2015, and also informed that it should hire more personnel. To Fernández, if the federal government works for other oil industry companies to increase their number of employees as well, more than 2 million jobs should be created.
“The Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade needs to take on the role of coordinator. If all goes well, we can create over 2 million jobs,” stated Fernández. “If all does not go well, then we will have 500,000 new positions.”
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
