Petrobras became the first publicly traded company in Latin America to exceed a $300 billion market capitalization.
Brazil’s state-controlled oil company reached the milestone during the commodities boom of 2007, when strong oil prices and investor expectations about Brazil’s offshore reserves lifted its shares. Petrobras was then among the world’s most valuable listed companies.
Petrobras was created in 1953 and became central to Brazil’s oil industry. It developed deep-water and ultradeep-water exploration expertise, especially in the offshore pre-salt fields discovered in the 2000s. The company’s shares trade in Brazil, and its American depositary receipts also trade in the United States.
Petrobras’s market value later moved sharply as oil prices changed and the company faced political, debt, and corruption-related pressures. A historic market-cap record should therefore not be confused with a permanent ranking or with the size of Brazil’s total economy.