Rio de Janeiro, November 30, 2015 - Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. - Petrobras hereby responds to CVM Official Letter 500/2015/CVM/SEP/GEA-1 requesting clarifications, as transcribed below:

CVM Official Letter 500/2015/CVM/SEP/GEA-1

'We refer to the news item published today in the Nacional (National) section of the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, entitled Auditoria embasa prisão de Bumlai definida por Moro (Bumlai's arrest decreed by Moro based on audit), which states that:

An internal Petrobras audit, concluded in May, confirmed that undue influence was exerted in the contracting of Grupo Schahin to operate the Vitória 10000 drill ship. According to the Federal Prosecution Office, the broker of the operation was the cattle-breeder and friend of former president Lula, José Carlos Bumlai, arrested last Tuesday and the chief target of Operation Free Pass, the 21st stage of Operation Car Wash.

The drill ship is needed for deep-sea oil exploration and the deal would be compensation for a R$12 million loan granted to Bumlai by Banco Schahin in 2004, which had gone to the funds of the PT.

'A single proposal was accepted for construction of the drill ship, whereas there could have been a competitive process,' stated Audit Report R02.E003/2015 of May 18. The document attached to Bumlai's arrest warrant states that 'the choice of Schahin as a partner was discretionary' and that the '15% bonus' to be received by the company for operating the drill ship 'was higher than the normal rate, which is around 10%'.
[...]

Report

'A single proposal was accepted for construction of the drill ship, whereas there could have been a competitive process'
'The choice of Schahin was discretionary. In addition, Schahin ceased to honor its payments over time, while requesting and receiving its bonus in advance'

Clarification

Petrobras hereby declares that an internal audit was carried out in the first half of 2015 in order to assess the control procedures applied to the contracting of the Petrobras-10000, Vitoria-10000, Pride/Ensco DS-5 and Titanium Explorer drill ships.

This audit resulted in a report containing recommendations regarding the recovery of said undue payments and the renegotiation or termination of the contracts in question.

The report was forwarded to the Federal Prosecution Office, care of the Force Task of Operation Car Wash (Operação Lava Jato), immediately on its conclusion. This document served as proof for judgment in the criminal proceedings related to the irregularities in the contracting of the Petrobras-10000 and Vitória-10000 drill ships.

Petrobras has already begun to adopt measures to comply with the report's recommendations, including the Company acting as a Prosecution Office Assistant in said criminal proceedings. The minimum damages to be paid to Petrobras have been fixed at R$54.5 million.

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