I Love Brazil

I think Sweden make pretty good missiles and some things around optronics... I don't think they make better jets than the US, though.

Brazil is participating on the Russian Sukhoi PAK-FA project, and that looks like a pretty good fighter...

 

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June 7, 2008

SouthAmerica: Some people on this forum sent me a private message and others sent me an email asking me how I could help them reach Petrobras, for them to participate on the oil business in Brazil.

I posted the following on this forum about a month ago, but I would suggest that you guys contact Francisco Gros and his new company directly and take from there since he is involved in the oil business in Brazil and I am not.

http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1949356&highlight=OGX+Petroleo#post1949356


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One year later:


“Batista Tested as OGX Doubles on Brazil Oil Outlook: Week Ahead’
By Alexander Ragir and Diana Kinch
Bloomberg News – August 24, 2009

Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Brazilian billionaire Eike Batista’s OGX Petroleo e Gas Participacoes SA will show in the next two months whether the eight-month rally that made the company the priciest of the world’s biggest energy stocks is justified.

OGX surged 127 percent this year on speculation Batista, Brazil’s richest man, will be successful in extracting crude from one of the largest oil prospects. Rio de Janeiro-based OGX began drilling last week, 14 months after its share sale marked Brazil’s biggest initial public offering at the time. OGX said it plans to tell investors by October whether it found oil.

All four companies that Batista’s Grupo EBX mining group took public since 2006 more than doubled this year, and each faces a juncture in the next two months that may cause shares to rise or fall as much as 20 percent, said Eduardo Favrin, head of equity at HSBC Global Asset Management’s Brazil unit.

“In September and October, you’re going to have critical definitions for the businesses,” said Sao Paulo-based Favrin, who oversees about $4 billion in stocks, including Batista’s OGX, MMX Mineracao e Metalicos SA and MPX Energia SA.

MPX, a utility, should give a “clearer picture” for results of a Colombian coal mine by September, according to UBS AG. EBX is in talks with China’s Wuhan Iron & Steel Group to sell a stake in mining company MMX, and Itau Unibanco Holding SA said a deal or refinancing “seems urgent.” LLX Logistica SA, Batista’s logistics company, may benefit from talks between MMX and Wuhan because it provides services for mining projects, Favrin said. All of Batista’s companies are based in Rio.

A delegation from Wuhan will meet with representatives from EBX in Brazil this week to discuss the MMX stake, according to Paulo Gouvea, an EBX director.

‘No Room for Error’

Batista, 52, declined a request for an interview for this story. Gouvea said the coming months “are full of good things” for Batista’s companies. MMX’s “negotiations are progressing,” he said in a telephone interview from Rio.
“Mother Nature always brings surprises but we are very optimistic” about the OGX drilling, Gouvea said.

OGX’s rally this year sent shares to 63 times reported earnings, the most expensive of the world’s 50 biggest oil and gas companies by market value, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. MPX fetches 29 times reported earnings, the most expensive of Brazil’s 20 biggest utilities, Bloomberg data show.

“At these levels you’re betting that the guys will deliver, so there’s no room for error,” said Eric Conrads, a Mexico City-based hedge fund manager at ING Investment Management, which oversees $12 billion in emerging-market assets. “It’s make-it-or-break-it at this stage.”
HSBC’s Favrin expects Batista will come through.

“These are the types of things you can’t anticipate, but everything is leading us to believe that the results are going to be positive,” he said.

‘King of IPOs’

Batista jumped to 61st from 142nd on Forbes magazine’s annual list of billionaires in March after the OGX offering and a $5.5 billion sale of two MMX iron ore mine projects to London- based Anglo American Plc last year.

“Eike’s the king of IPOs,” said Joao Carlos Cavalcanti, a Sao Paulo-based mining rival who was Batista’s partner five years ago in Rio-based IRX Mineracao Ltda., an iron-ore prospecting company that later became a part of MMX. “He’s a paper salesman. Now he’s going to have to prove what he’s got.”

Batista, whose father was chief executive officer of the company now known as Vale SA, the world’s biggest iron ore producer, got his start in mining in the early 1980s when he struck out into the Brazilian Amazon to join a gold rush. He says he bought a mine at age 24, made a $6 million profit in the first year and once had a bodyguard kill a man who drew a gun during a money dispute.

“I’m a massive creator of wealth,” he told reporters in Rio after the Anglo sale was announced in January 2008.

Value ‘Under the Ground’

OGX raised 5.87 billion reais ($3.21 billion) in its June 2008 IPO as investors bet Batista could match Brazil’s state- controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA’s success at finding oil. OGX’s current valuations aren’t reflective of the company because it has yet to record any revenue, Gouvea said.

“I’m surprised we even have a P/E,” he said. “The value of our business is under the ground.”

OGX has an estimated 4.8 billion barrels of oil in the 2,625-square-mile concession it won from the government in November 2007 in four of the nation’s offshore basins, according to the company’s press office. The estimate uses a so-called success rate of 27 percent, meaning it considers most drilling attempts will not find oil or gas deposits sufficient to merit development.

Santos Basin

OGX and Copenhagen-based Maersk Oil started drilling the BM-S-29 field on Aug. 16 in the Santos basin, about 174 miles from the Tupi field. Petrobras, as the Rio-based state energy company is known, estimates Tupi contains as much as 8 billion barrels of oil, the largest find in the western hemisphere since Mexico’s Cantarell in 1976.

“We have several prospects of very low risk in Santos and in Campos,” OGX Chief Executive Officer Paulo Mendonca said in a meeting with journalists on Aug. 17 at his office in Rio. “That makes us very optimistic.”

ING’s Conrads said he doesn’t own any of Batista’s stocks because the potential for declines in the event OGX drilling comes up dry or MMX’s Wuhan deal fails. On Aug. 6, Lima-based Maple Energy Plc plunged 46 percent after saying it found no oil in its first well in Peru’s Santa Rosa prospect.

“If they deliver, the stocks will keep going up,” Conrads said. “But if they don’t, they’ll go down pretty nicely and I wouldn’t want to be there.”

Markets

Brazil’s Bovespa index climbed 1.9 percent last week, the sixth straight advance. Gafisa SA and Cyrela Brazil Realty SA Empreendimentos e Participacoes, Brazil’s largest homebuilders, rose 18 percent and 13 percent, respectively, for the biggest gains in the measure.

The real increased 1 percent last week to 1.8299 per U.S. dollar. The yield on the zero-coupon local-currency bonds due January 2011 climbed two basis points, or 0.02 percentage point, to 9.75 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=ahrS51Z5lD.M

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October 26, 2009

SouthAmerica: Someone on Brazzil magazine has asked me a question about agrarian and land reform in Brazil, and here is my answer to that person:

I already had mentioned on this forum that we have one of the best countries on our planet – a very rich country in all kinds of natural resources. Brazil is one of the few countries that has almost everything and in theory could be self-sufficient.

We have one of the largest countries in the world, a terrific location in terms where Brazil is located when compared with the other countries, and most of our land can be useful in one way or another.

We have the largest amount of fresh underground water than any other country in our planet, and that is a very important asset.

Brazil has what it takes to become one of the major economic powers of the 21st century.

But greater expectations held for mankind as a whole it can’t be achieved without a race to the bottom. The only way that global economic equality can be achieved is by sharing massive poverty with the rest of the world. Basically global economic equality can be reached only by the lowest common denominators.

Sorry to disappoint the readers, but that is the reality in our planet and its 7 billion people by December 2011, and about 8 billion people by 2022.

Regarding the goal of “agrarian / land reform” in Brazil in order to provide the means of sustenance to millions of near indigent, landless peasants and slum dwellers, I am sorry, but that it can’t be done, because of global environment, and the economic realities of the 21st century.

Just look what happened in Zimbabwe and what agrarian reform did to that country – total population starvation.

Also look at what happened in Brazil when the Brazilian government distributed land in the Amazon area of Brazil to the millions of peasants who where displaced by the innovations in the agriculture business in the 1960’s and 1970’s. That solution it has turned into a disaster for Brazil.

If we were back 100 years ago I might have agreed with agrarian / land reform in Brazil, but not in 2009.

The world can’t afford for Brazil to start a land distribution to small farmers. Even here in the United States the small farmers are becoming a dinosaur.

What we need is major corporations with its high technology doing the farming in Brazil to increase output, being well capitalized, and have money to do agricultural research to improve the agricultural system even more.

At this point Brazil can’t afford to distribute its land to small farmers since we can’t turn the clock to a time long gone. Land distribution in theory is a romantic subject, but in practice it would be a disaster for Brazil and the rest of the world that will depend on the future of the extra supply of food produced in Brazil.


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You also can read about land rights in Brazil at:

Andrada a Family of Revolutionaries
http://andradabrazilrevolutionaries.blogspot.com/

…The landowners and property owners are the people who should be worried about because of the “Sem Terra” and the “Sem Teto.”


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Biography of my great/great grandfather:
Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva - (O Moço) / (The Young)

http://josebonifaciodeandradaesilva.../jose-bonifacio-de-andrada-e-silva-young.html


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Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) from cane sugar (sucrose) is competitive with gasoline from petroleum. Possibly from sugar beets also, but the energy for distilling comes from burning the crushed canes; this may be a reason beets are not as attractive as an ethanol source.

There was never any question that ethanol from corn was a terrible idea (you don't get enough glucose to make it economically feasible), nevertheless it was pushed through as a back-door farm subsidy by midwestern congressmen. And it is doubly costly because when the subsidies end the share holders of the etnanol-from-corn-producers will be bag holders, unless of course, we all start drinking a lot more vodka!

A gallon of ethanol releases less energy when burned than a gallon of gas. So ethanol must be correspondingly cheaper than gasoline to be competitive as a motor fuel.

The best idea for the next decade or two is to burn lpg and natural gas in cars.

 

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October 27, 2009

SouthAmerica: I just posted this reply on Brazzil magazine in response to the above posting as follows:

Here in the United States the BBC News has been covering Robert Mugabe’s land redistribution in Zimbabwe for many years. It is a case study of how to go from agriculture self-sufficiency to complete collapse in agriculture resulting in mass starvation and famine in Zimbabwe.

We already have a mess in Brazil caused by the Brazilian land distribution in the Amazons because of the land distribution in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

We have two actual examples showing how land distribution to peasants can be catastrophic in Brazil and also in Zimbabwe.

The Mugabe government expropriated the white farmers that had been farming in Zimbabwe for generations, and Zimbabwe was self-sufficient in food production.

After the Mugabe expropriated the farming land all over Zimbabwe and distributed it to the peasants they found out that they did not know how to farm and Zimbabwe had a complete collapse in agriculture resulting in mass famine and starvation.


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The results of the post-2000 land reform have been disastrous for the economy of Zimbabwe. Prior to land redistribution, land-owning farmers, mostly white, had large tracts of land and utilized economies of scale to raise capital, borrow money when necessary, and purchase modern mechanized farm equipment to increase productivity on their land. As the primary beneficiaries of the land reform were members of the Government and their families, despite the fact that most had no experience in running a farm, the drop in total farm output has been tremendous and produced widespread claims by aid agencies of starvation and famine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reform_in_Zimbabwe



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SouthAmerica: But if the MST still wants to get some land for its people, then they should read the following article, since according to the author there is plenty of land available to be grabbed in Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

Is Brazil Creating Its Own "Backyard"?
Raúl Zibechi | February 3, 2009
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5836


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“Brazil Emerges as a Military Power”
Raúl Zibechi | October 14, 2009
http://americas.irc-online.org/am/6494


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Brazil is great for a long term play IMO.

 

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November 2, 2009

SouthAmerica: I know that there some people who still doubt that Brazil has nuclear weapons, mainly because Brazil is not supposed to develop such weapons under the current Brazilian Constitution.

But in the last few weeks President Lula and also his vice president Alencar made public comments almost saying in black and white that Brazil already has an arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Today’s article by a former president of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso also confirms that Brazil has nuclear weapons – Former President Cardoso is complaining on his article that Brazil developed its atomic bombs against the clear text of the Brazilian Constitution.

Anyway, officially just like Israel, Brazil is not supposed to be armed with nuclear weapons, and the game will continue to be played that way.


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“The Time Has Come to End Lula's Monarchy in Brazil”
Written by Fernando Henrique Cardoso
Brazzil magazine
Monday, 02 November 2009
http://www.brazzil.com/component/co...to-end-lulas-monarchy-in-brazil.html#comments


…Even the atomic bomb defense as instrument for us to get to the UN's Security Council - against the clear text of the Constitution - once in a while is supported by top executives, without asking the citizenry what is the best course for Brazil.


Note: Fernando Henrique Cardoso, sociologist, was President of Brazil from January 1st, 1995 to January 1st, 2003.


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the whole of south america is an unproven region as compared to east asia. there are success stories ine ast asia like Japan,hong Kong and Singapore.


What does south america have to show the world after all these years? massive inflation and currency crises
Brazil only has drugs and favelas, and it will always be a continent like Africa, tons of resources but simply an inept people. Avoid at all costs.

 

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November 14, 2009

SouthAmerica: The cover story of the last issue of "The Economist" magazine is about Brazil "Brazil takes off".
(Issue November 14th - 20th 2009)

They have a 14-page special report on Latin America's big success story.

After I finish reading the special report I might make some comments about it on this thread.

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oh hi you are back, did they have big success in restoring your power cut?