Petrobras says output at capacity despite strike

By Denise Luna

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian energy giant Petrobras (PETR4.SA: Quote, Profile, Research)(PBR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Tuesday its oil production was back at full capacity, despite a strike by its workers that had helped to push up world oil prices in recent days.

A spokesman for Petrobras said production was expected to remain at full capacity until the end of the five-day strike, which started at midnight on Sunday.

"It has already reached 100 percent," the spokesman told Reuters.

The Campos basin affected by the strike accounts for more than 80 percent of Brazil's crude output of 1.8 million barrels per day. Petrobras implemented a contingency plan to shore up output with emergency staff on most platforms in the basin.

By late Monday, the company was producing at 96 percent of capacity. After resuming operations Monday night at the last platform affected by the strike, production had returned to normal by early Tuesday, it said.

Officials from the union representing workers in the Campos Basin and Petrobras said on Tuesday they would meet on Wednesday to discuss ways to end the walkout. The strikers want Petrobras to count the day employees leave a platform for shore as a paid work day.

A separate umbrella union, the United Oil Workers' Federation, was meeting on Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro to discuss extending the strike nationwide to refineries and shipping terminals to demand a greater take in profit sharing. An announcement was expected late in the day.

"Petrobras has said their offer is final. So we are now going to have some arm wrestling with them over that," said Jose Genivaldo Silva, a director at the federation. "Our strike proposal would affect the entire country and also include refineries and terminals."