Brazil's state-owned oil and gas giant Petrobras, the largest company in the country, ranked second in a list of the 25 most profitable companies in the American continent, the consulting company Economatica said Wednesday.

Last week, Petrobras announced a 4.1 billion U.S. dollars net profit in the third quarter of 2009. The amount is only below the profit registered by U.S. oil company Exxon Mobil in the period, which reached 4.73 billion dollars.

Oil giant Chevron Texaco, also from the United States, ranked third on Economatica's list, having registered a net profit of 3. 83 billion dollars in the third quarter of this year. JP Morgan Chase bank ranked fourth, with a net profit of 3.58 billion dollars, followed by software giant Microsoft with 3.57 billion dollars.

Brazil's second largest company, mining giant Vale, ranked 22nd on Economatica's list with a net profit of 1.68 billion U.S. in the third quarter of 2009.

When only Latin American countries are considered, Petrobras and Vale occupy the first two places in the ranking. Itau Unibanco bank ranked fourth, with a net profit of 1.27 billion dollars, followed by Banco do Brasil bank (1.11 billion U.S. dollars) and Bradesco bank (1.01 billion U.S. dollars).

According to Economatica, there are 15 Brazilian companies among the 25 most profitable companies in Latin America. The remaining companies are from Mexico (five), Chile (two), Argentina (two) and Peru (one).