Graças Foster as the Transportadora Brasileira do Gasoduto Bolivia-Brasil. In 1998, Foster was working for a Petrobras unit that was involved importing natural gas from Bolivia. During this time, she met Dilma Rousseff, who in October 2010, would be elected to serve as the first female President of Brazil. In 1998, Rousseff was a relatively unknown energy official, serving in Rio Grande do Sul in southern Brazil. Foster and Rousseff developed a lifelong professional relationship, based in their mutual support of the leftist Workers Party, which rose to power in 2002, resulting in the election of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as
Impeachment of Dilma Rousseff stressed the company's financial health. She stepped down from the Petrobras board only in February 2015. Some international companies were chosen to be encouraged and, thereafter participated in unrealistic bids to drain the state-owned company, giving back much of the value through seemingly licit donations. It was alleged that statements taken from the accused in Operation Car Wash suggested that Lula and Rousseff had known of the bribery scheme in Petrobras. Rousseff issued six unnumbered decrees in 2014 and 2015 that allocated funds to social programs, allegedly for political purposes, without authorization from Congress. These totaled R$18.5 billion (US$6.9 billion)