Brazil & Southern Cone - August 2026

BRAZIL | Petrobras posts record production. Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petrobras released its oil and gas production figures for the second quarter on 28 July, showing a total of 3.34m barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd). This marked a quarterly increase of 3.4% and a year-on-year increase of 14.1%, and it is a record figure for the company, Petrobras said. Oil production in Q2 totalled 2.69m barrels per day (bpd), up 4.1% in quarterly terms and a 15.7% increase year-on-year, while natural gas production totalled 619,000 boepd, up 1% compared to Q1 and up 13.7% compared to Q2 last year. In its latest quarterly report, the oil giant attributed the rise in production to factors such as increased operational efficiency in processing units, as well as the launch of operations in new production wells. Petrobras highlighted particularly strong results in the Búzios oil field, located in the Santos Basin, with average monthly oil production in Búzios surpassing 1m bpd in June for the first time.

CHILE | Unemployment rate remains high. The national statistics institute (INE) released new figures on 31 July for unemployment in the second quarter of this year, which showed an unemployment rate of 9.4% in April-June 2026, equivalent to 980,270 people searching for work. This unemployment rate remains unchanged from the March-May rolling quarter but marks an increase from 9.1% in February-April and 8.9% in January-March. In year-on-year terms, this also represents an increase compared to 8.9% unemployment in April-June 2025. Chile’s total labour force, which stood at 10.38m people in April-June this year, increased by 1.5% over 12 months, while the total number of formally employed people, which stood at 9.4m people, increased by a slower rate of 0.9%. Chile’s informality rate stood at 27% in Q2 2026, which marked a one-percentage-point increase compared to April-June 2025 and was equal to the immediately preceding quarter.

Brazil & Southern Cone: inflation rate
Percentage variation (year-on-year)

Brazil & Southern Cone: GDP growth (%)
Quarterly figures are year-on-year growth