Petrobras Will `Need a Miracle' to Hit Output Target, Itau Says

By Paulo Winterstein

Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, will ``need a miracle'' to meet its forecast for production this year, Itau Corretora said, citing July results that ``continue to disappoint.''

Petrobras, as the Rio de Janeiro-based company is known, produced 1.87 million barrels of crude oil and natural-gas liquids per day in Brazil in July, almost unchanged from June, according to data posted on the company's Web site yesterday.

``As the year goes on, the closer we are to seeing another year of production performance lagging behind expectations,'' analyst Paula Kovarsky wrote in a note to investors. ``We probably need a miracle here to meet our target or Petrobras's new guidance figures'' of 1.95 million barrels per day, she wrote.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paulo Winterstein in Sao Paulo at pwinterstein@bloomberg.net.