By Jeffrey T. Lewis

SÃO PAULO--Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petróleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, said Friday its board elected Joaquim Silva e Luna as chief executive and also named other new top officials.

Mr. Silva e Luna replaces Roberto Castello Branco, who was named to the job in early 2019 by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Mr. Bolsonaro nominated Mr. Silva e Luna to take over as CEO in February after a dispute with Mr. Castello Branco over rapidly rising fuel prices, and the company lost almost a fifth of its value the following trading day.

Mr. Silva e Luna's election Friday was expected, and Petrobras shares were down 0.3% in mid-afternoon trading. The benchmark Bovespa stocks index was up 0.3% at the same time.

Brazil's president had promised Mr. Castello Branco the government wouldn't interfere with the company's price policy, a sore spot that had led to an economically disruptive truckers strike in 2018 sparked by the high price of diesel fuel. Petrobras had lost billions of dollars a few years earlier while Dilma Rousseff was president of Brazil when the company kept fuel prices artificially low to try to keep inflation under control.

Mr. Silva a Luna, an army general, had previously been the Brazilian director general of Itaipu Binacional, the Brazilian-Paraguayan agency that operates the Itaipu hydroelectric dam straddling the two countries.

Petrobras's board also elected other top officials at the company, including Rodrigo Araujo Alves as chief financial officer and head of investor relations and Fernando Assumpção Borges as director of exploration and production.

Write to Jeffrey T. Lewis at jeffrey.lewis@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-16-21 1513ET