Brazil: The creaking champions

Joe Leahy – Financial Times, 04/21/2013

In 2010, when 60 Minutes came to Brazil to do a piece on the “World’s Next Economic Superpower”, the US television programme chose Eike Batista as the ambassador for the country.

“You know, in the last 16 years, Brazil has put its act together. This is it. Hello, time for Americans to wake up,” Mr Batista said with trademark brashness.

In retrospect, the discovery by primetime TV of Brazil’s economy should itself have been a sell signal for investors that a long boom in Latin America’s biggest economy, fuelled by high commodity prices and credit, was peaking.

Read more…

 

Petrobras not in talks with govt to raise fuel prices-CEO

Reuters, 8/21/2012

Aug 21 (Reuters) – Brazil’s state-led oil company Petrobras is not in negotiations with the government over raising fuel prices, the company’s chief executive, Maria das Gracas Foster, said on Tuesday.

Petrobras has posted heavy losses from its domestic fuels business due to the government’s policy of holding gasoline and diesel prices largely unchanged at the pump over the past eight years.

“No, there isn’t any negotiation on this subject,” Foster told reporters in Rio de Janeiro when asked if the company was in talks with the government on raising fuel prices.

Read more…

Petrobras Hurt by Transocean Rig Loss in Brazilian Court

Peter Millard – Bloomberg, 8/1/2012

Petroleo Brasileiro SA is likely to lose 11 percent of its drilling fleet because Brazil banned Transocean (RIG) Ltd. from tapping deep-water fields, the latest misstep hindering the development of Latin America’s biggest oil discoveries since 1976.

A Brazilian court on July 31 ordered Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore drilling contractor, to halt operations within 30 days after one of its rigs was involved in a spill at the Frade offshore field operated by Chevron Corp. The ban threatens to shut down 7 of the 66 Petrobras rigs drilling off the coast of the South American nation that is home to more than 50 billion barrels of crude oil.

Petrobras, as the state-controlled producer is known, cut output growth targets in a $236.5 billion investment plan announced in June, partly because of delays in acquiring equipment needed to drill deep-water wells. The Rio de Janeiro- based company is set to report tomorrow a 70 percent drop in second-quarter adjusted profit after it missed production goals, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

Read more…

Brazil And Petrobras: Oil Potential Or Oil Dream?

Seeking Alpha, 6/11/12

Brazil, with 2.719 million b/d (barrels per day, as of 2010) oil production, is one of the larger non-OPEC oil sources, and ranked No. 9 in the world based on 2010 oil production data, according to the U.S Energy Dept.

To exploit the huge offshore oil discoveries in recent years, Petrobras (PBR) — Brazil’s state oil company–unveiled an ambitious investment plan last year–$225 billion for the years 2011 to 2015. In this world’s largest corporate investment program, about 57% or $128 billion will be invested in upstream exploration and production aiming at developing its large ‘pre-salt’ discoveries in deep and ultra-deep water south of Rio de Janeiro (See Graph Below from the U.S. Energy Dept.)

The region, including areas in the Santos and Campos basins, may contain as much as 100 billion barrels, according to the Brazilian Petroleum and Gas Institute at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Petrobras plans to more than double its output to 6.42 million barrels of oil and natural gas equivalent a day (boed) by 2020, 98% of it in Brazil.

Read more…