. May 10, 2008 SouthAmerica: Brazil an oil exporting country and a member of OPEC. ***** Bloomberg News - Thursday, May 8, 2008 Petrobras plans to hire 14,000 in US$112.7 billion expansion By Joe Carroll, Bloomberg HOUSTON -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil's state-controlled oil company, plans to add 14,000 engineers, geologists and drillers within three years as it develops the biggest crude discovery in the Western Hemisphere since 1976. Petrobras, as the company is known, plans to expand its workforce 23 percent to about 74,000, surpassing Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. oil producer. The hiring binge is part of a US$112.7 billion expansion that may allow Brazil to overtake the output of all OPEC members except Saudi Arabia. Petrobras lacks the roughnecks, or rig workers, and other staff needed to tap billions of barrels that lie in the offshore oil finds. The company is trying to hire more than a dozen people a day amid intensifying competition for skilled oil workers after crude prices surged to a record. Petrobras said this week that it will begin pumping oil by April 2009 at its Tupi field 250 kilometers off the Atlantic coast, a year ahead of schedule. The field may hold 8 billion barrels of recoverable oil, Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras said in November, the hemisphere's biggest petroleum find since Mexico's Cantarell field was discovered. Production at the nearby Carioca deposit may begin in four to five years, Gabrielli said in the interview. A Brazilian regulator said last month that Carioca may hold 33 billion barrels of crude, which would make it the largest field outside the Middle East. Petrobras said it will take at least three months of drilling to evaluate Carioca. Tupi and seven other fields in the same region of the Atlantic are central to Gabrielli's plan to boost production by 79 percent to the equivalent of 4.2 million barrels of crude a day by 2015. Output at that level would put Petrobras on par with Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's biggest energy company. "If some of the hypotheses are true and we have very, very, very large reserves, then probably we are going to face some constraints on personnel," Chief Executive Officer Jose Sergio Gabrielli said in a May 5 interview in Houston. Petrobras has risen 28 percent in Sao Paulo trading since announcing the Tupi discovery in November. Over the same period, a Standard & Poor's index of major U.S. producers has climbed 7.6 percent. Oil futures reached a record US$122.73 a barrel Tuesday in New York. ********. âBrazil wants OPEC membershipâ The Associated Press - May 9, 2008 BERLIN - Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva believes his nation wants to join OPEC to help bring down oil prices, a leading German weekly quoted him as saying Friday. Silva said in the interview published in Der Spiegel news magazine that his nation plans to exploit massive deep-water oil reserves discovered near Rio de Janeiro. "Then Brazil will become a major oil exporter," Silva said in an advance copy of the interview to be published Saturday. "We want to join OPEC and to try to make oil cheaper." Brazil's proven oil reserves are 11.8 billion barrels, according to the U.S. Energy Department. Germany's chancellor Angela Merkel will visit Brazil on May 13-15. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is a group of nations headquartered in Vienna that meets regularly to try to ensure stability of prices in international oil markets. .
Mostly all taxis in Brasil can run on gasoline, natgas, and/or ethonal. Ethonal is so 80s. Do you realize we could build 4 solar plants in the Mohave desert that each could power all the electricity in the USA. Do you realize with what we paid in Iraq for this "war", we could have built five of them already. Hmmmmm. Duhh. Show me the money!
Hackers? Are you serious? How about the extreme poverty. In Brazil you are either rich, or very poor. Not much in between and your only chance out of poverty is by becoming a soccer star or hooking till you marry a gringo. Then again, US is on the way to be like this also. Gated communities and everyone else.
Once in a century, Brazil has an opportunity to become a world power by using its wonderful natural resources. But brazilian people and politicians seem not interested in doing this...and this time will be no different! Regarding stock market, there are only 4 companies making new highs, PBR, RIO, GGB and SID, horrible breadth!! Interest rates are on an upward trend, inflation expectations as well. S&P just upgraded the country, need a better contrarian signal?? EWZ is making its last leg up. Watch for weakness, this will be the best short opportunity of the last 5 years.
Brazil is doing a much better job this time around. Although they are still dependent on raw commodities, their financial house is in order. They will have problems if the US tanks,and then China tanks (which would happen BTW). Until then, its fun to watch the incredible growth in agriculture and energy. They have the potential to pass the US as the bread basket of the world (already have in several crops, but not overall). That said, it is still definitely a 3rd World country, and the extreme poverty that goes with that is a major problem. I have seen it first hand. In fact, its the only place I have ever been mugged, and I have spent time in many 3rd world nations across the globe. Generally, I love the people there though. Very fun. Lets hope that they do a job on the poverty as this is the main cause of Amazon deforestation. That's the lungs of the world. Slash and burn farming, and log poaching by poor people is really doing a number on the place. jay
No kidding. And Lula was supposed to level the difference among classes. The only people that are getting richer here are the already rich ones...bankers, real estate, and commodities players. It's funny to watch the economy minister take all the credit when in fact Brazil has a pathetic growth rate thanks to the surge in commodities. About the stock market, people have no clue how to sell stocks. They buy and they hold period. We all know how that ends. Don't even get me started about home financing to the poorest class because it's saturday and it's a sunny beautiful day otherwise...
. May 16, 2008 SouthAmerica: I am glad that my cousinâs bank is doing so well; as a matter of fact his father Olavo Egydio Setubal had been doing a great job with Banco Itau for a long time. We are both direct descendants of the Barao de Souza Queiroz. The Barao of Souza Queiroz it was my great/great/grandfather and he was also the great/great/grandfather of Olavo Egydio Setubal. The Barao of Souza Queiroz had 13 children and Olavo Egydio Setubal is a direct descendant of the oldest son of the Barao: Francisco Antonio de Souza Queiroz Filho. (Child # 1) I am a direct descendant of the youngest son of the Barao of Souza Queiroz: Carlos de Souza Queiroz. (child # 13) My great-grandfather Carlos de Souza Queiroz married Maria Flora de Andrada e Silva de Souza Queiroz â that marriage united the 2 most influential families in Brazilian history â The âAndrada e Silvaâ Family and The âSouza Queirozâ Family. The Barao of Souza Queiroz was the major shareholder of Banco Comercio Industria which was a major bank in Brazil for a long time, but I donât remember what happened to that bank. All I can say to my cousin Roberto Egydio Setubal is: Keep up the good work since our family is proud of having outstanding family members such as you and your father. ****** âSetubal Sees Brazil in `Transformation' as Growth Lures Fundsâ By Telma Marotto and Adriana Arai Bloomberg News â May 16, 2008 May 16 (Bloomberg) -- Banco Itau Holding Financeira SA's Roberto Egydio Setubal, head of Brazil's second-biggest non- government bank, said his nation is in a ``transformation'' that's creating the best conditions for business he's ever seen. Brazil, Latin America's largest economy, has broken a cycle of boom and bust because of rising commodity exports and will enjoy sustainable annual growth of 4 percent to 5 percent, Setubal said in an interview this week in Sao Paulo. An investment-grade rating granted by Standard & Poor's last month will make Brazil a magnet for foreign investors, he said. Setubal is expanding abroad and at home, capitalizing on the 31 percent rise in Brazil's real against the dollar since May 2006, the collapse of inflation from almost 5,000 percent in 1994 to 5 percent now, and losses at global competitors. He's opening offices in the Middle East and Asia, hiring bankers from Deutsche Bank AG and Merrill Lynch & Co. and looking to buy Brazilian assets that may get dumped by foreign firms at discount prices. ``I don't see Brazil going back,'' the 53-year-old chief executive officer said at his office in Sao Paulo. ``The strong currency and investment grade are here to stay.'' Brazil, the biggest debtor among emerging markets for decades, became a net foreign creditor in January after international reserves surged to a record $195.8 billion. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, president since 2003, bolstered confidence in the nation by reducing the budget deficit and allowing the central bank to operate independently, Setubal said. `Biggest Opportunities' ``Brazil in coming years will enjoy growth in financial instruments much higher than any other country that I'm able to be in,'' said Setubal, a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. ``The biggest opportunities for Itau are in Brazil.'' Itau plans to expand its network of 2,782 branches by 140 in Brazil this year, and add 5,000 workers to the staff of 66,442, senior managing director Silvio Carvalho said in a Bloomberg Television interview on May 6. Led by Setubal, who became CEO in 1994, Itau has returned better than 1,300 percent with dividends during the past decade in Sao Paulo trading, more than double the Bovespa index and outpacing the 1,092 percent total return of Banco Bradesco SA, Brazil's largest non-government bank by assets. Government- controlled Banco do Brasil SA, Latin America's largest bank by assets, advanced 771 percent. Brazil's $1.07 trillion economy grew 5.4 percent in 2007, the fastest in three years. Controlled inflation led the central bank to cut the benchmark interest rate to as low as 11.25 percent in September, encouraging people and companies to borrow record amounts and boosting profit at Brazilian banks. Lending has increased every month since February 2004 to 992.7 billion reais ($600.8 billion) in March. `Transformation' ``The transformation that we have gone through in the past 10 years is very solid,'' Setubal said. The company's net income almost doubled in 2007 to 8.47 billion reais from the previous year, compared with a 58 percent rise in Bradesco's profit to 8.01 billion reais. Itau is taking advantage of losses in mortgage and collateralized debt markets that weakened international peers, Setubal said. International banks and securities companies have raised about $260 billion of capital since July, after writedowns and credit losses of at least $342 billion. ``We were lucky about this crisis, because it gave us time to develop our business'' while competitors were reeling, Setubal said. ``Today I'm building up my business, hiring good people in the market, developing my franchise.'' Poaching Talent Itau hired 196 people in the past year for its investment banking unit Itau BBA SA, Brazil's largest wholesale bank, including Alexandre Aoude, former head of Deutsche Bank's Brazilian unit. The workforce at Itau BBA increased to 1,026 at the end of April from 830 people a year earlier, according to the bank. Brazil was the third-biggest market for initial public offerings globally in 2007, according to Bloomberg data. This year, only three companies went public, reflecting the reduced appetite for risk by international investors. Setubal said ``the worst moment is behind us'' and he expects IPOs in Brazil to rebound during the second half of the year. Lack of investment in roads, ports and energy could put the economic expansion at risk, said Sergio Goldenstein, the former head of open-market operations at the Brazilian central bank. A second risk to Brazil's bonanza is inflation, said Goldenstein, now at Rio de Janeiro-based BNY Mellon ARX, which manages about 9 billion reais. The central bank last month raised its benchmark rate for the first time in three years after inflation reached a two-year high of 5 percent. Higher interest rates won't deter the economy from growing and the monetary policy makers' action was another sign of the government's commitment to sound economic policies, Setubal said. ``This is part of making this scenario possible,'' he said. ``This is part of the process that we will enjoy in coming years.'' Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=axr5CzbmE9ak&refer=home .
It is a nice story, but really Brasil's rise has mostly been due to the commodity boom and the fact they have a ton. And also foreigners buying cheap Beachfront R.E. or farmland. Real Estate is no longer cheap to attract foreign investment so what will happen when commodities go into a decline? Can you tell me any actual laws that have been changed that influenced any of Brasil's progress? If they started getting rid of their rediculous tariffs and start raising their minimum wage, now then that would do something for the country. 90% of the people get paid what like US$350 a month. While the remaining 10% are filthy rich. I won't even get into the blatent corruption. Just another government keeping the people down. No way without some actual changes they can sustain their recent performance. Unless commodities keep booming, the glory days are numbered. The fact S&P just gave this rating should be a tipoff the end is near. It may not happen for a while but don't be the last one in when everyone starts heading for the exits.