Thursday, August 30, 2007

Brazil makes oil too?

Lately, Brazil's energy-efficient and economical sugar cane ethanol industry has been receiving lots of attention in energy circles. But, Brazil has a fairly large and thriving petrochemical industry as well. Today's Wall Street Journal profiles the unusual success that Petrobras, Brazil's nationally owned oil company, has had in the last ten years. Highlights from the article:

"If only our friends in OPEC were more like Petrobras we'd all be a lot happier because there would be a lot more oil," says Leo Drollas, chief economist of the London-based Center for Global Energy Studies....

...[Ten years ago the Brazilian government] also abolished Petrobras's monopoly on drilling for oil in Brazilian territory....

...Unlike most state companies, which were either born with reserves or nationalized them, "our objective was to find reserves," says Mr. Gabrielli, the Petrobras president....
MIT users can get the article FREE via Factiva by starting from this link.

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