Mr. Barbassa was born on May 19, 1947 and he holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from Getúlio Vargas Foundation of Rio de Janeiro.

Before 1989 Mr. Barbassa worked in several financial and planning capacities, among which the establishment of the first subsidiary of Petrobras outside Brazil (in Lybia); from August 1989 to September 1992 he was the Financial Manager of the American subsidiary in Houston, Texas, oversaw the establishment and consolidation of the company, which explores and produces oil and gas, trades oil products and does procurement world wide.

From April 1993 he was the Finance Director of Braspetro, the international arm of Petrobras, redirected the company by giving it a regional focus and transforming the money-losing enterprise into a lucrative one whose market value went from less than US$300 million to more than US$800 million during this period. From July 1999 to July 22, 2005 he was Petrobras's corporate finance and treasury manager and worked toward increasing the company's market value from US$10 billion to US$25 billion.

He issued with great success in 2001 the first bond with PRI (Political Risk Insurance), opening to emerging markets a new channel of raising funds at lower cost than the sovereign cost.

He is ex-Chairman of Petrobras International Finance Co., Petrobras Finance Ltd, and Petrobras Netherlands BV, the companies that carry out Petrobras's international financial activities.