Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras announced Thursday it reduced its losses in the second quarter of the year, saying there were "signs of recovery" from the global economic meltdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The company posted a net loss of 2.7 billion reals ($417 million) for the period from April to June, far better than the 48.5 billion reals it lost in the first three months of the year. "The global economy is showing signals of recovery boosted by the $15 trillion injection -- about 12 percent of global GDP -- derived from monetary and fiscal policy actions," chief executive Roberto Castello Branco said in a statement. "Uncertainty remains," he added, but "on a more moderated level." Petrobras was pummeled in the first quarter by coronavirus shutdown measures that slashed oil demand worldwide. The loss it posted then was its worst since it was hit by a huge corruption scandal in 2014-2017. The company said last quarter that the oil industry was facing its "worst crisis in the last 100 years." Branco sought to sound a more upbeat note on the second quarter. "We are running the ship safely through uncharted waters," he said. The loss was less than it might have been thanks to the recovery of value-added tax formerly paid into the federal unemployment and social security benefit programs. That one-time gain amounted to 10.9 billion reals, Petrobras said. jhb/acb