Padre Miguel or Nicaraguan diplomat, politician, liberation theologian and Maryknoll Catholic priest, H.E. Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, is indeed a breath of fresh air at the UN.

The Maryknoll Catholic priests from the US helped the poor of Nicaragua at the time of the US imposed dictatorship - we remember pictures of kidnaped and killed Maryknoll sisters and we remember the difficulties Latin American liberation theologians had, and still have, with the Vatican. Padre Miguel was born in the US, and was active in Nicaragua, and was bleeding for all Latin poor. Having him, a Ghandian, as President of the UN General Assembly, the nominally highest international position in the world, is indeed amazing. Nominally, the President of the General Assembly is the highest ranking UN personality, though he does not have the decision making power of a Security Council member, neither the practical, administrative power of the Secretary General. but he has at least, for one or two years, the power to decide what should be talked about at the General Assembly talking club.

To be clear about what this man stands for - openly in public - we attached his June 4, 2008, acceptance speech at the UN. We proceeded and marked with yellow the lines where he mentions the anthropogenic nature of so called natural phenomena and his attention to hunger, poverty, climate change, energy crisis, terrorism, human rights, disarmament, nuclear control, rights of women and children, preservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity. We clearly expect him not to treat those issues as individually separate issues but to make the connection and integrate the approach to the bundle of crises - exactly how they popped up to our attention in the last couple of months. We were excited back in November when a Catholic blog enthusiastically proposed Padre Miguel as Obama’s new Pastor. Who knows, there might have been a premonition here - but then let us not forget that the position of President of UNGA is for one year only - though it might be eventually extended for a second year. Nevertheless, if Obama becomes US President, he will have a good partner at the UNGA.

OK, so now Padre Miguel looked at all the crises and decided that the UN has to step in and asked Professor Joe Stiglitz to be his economist adviser and establish a panel to look at these crises. This panel is still in the making.

Then, looking at the upcoming November 29 - December 2, 2008 Doha Review Conference of the non-implementation of the so called Monterrey Consensus, that had in September 2008 already an introductory meeting here at the UN headquarters, he decided to use the “we go to Doha” idea in order to review the present bundle of crises that because of the Global Financial Crisis endangers all dealings with the other crises.

The Sarcozy suggestion to hold a global summit of the G-20 in New York on November 20, 2008, after the US Presidential elections, got deflected by President Bush to Washington DC - so it is a last hurrah for the present Administration - but this should not deter the UN to deal with the problems - if nothing else - it will UN material for the Washington meeting.

So, appointing Professor Joe Stiglitz, an adviser to Senator Obama, is also a good step in the direction of the future. To make this really inclusive he added further three known personalities: from Belgium the seat of the EU, from India - the second largest developing power of Asia, and from Ecuador - an OPEC member but fairly independent when it comes to Latin America issues.  Though nominally intent to deal with Financing for Development, it seems clear that global finances, hunger and the MDGs, and climate change will be topics of this day-long symposium and we look forward to the event.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Priest & President of the U.N.?

 

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Under Bush, US Influence in Latin America Wanes.
Saturday 11 October 2008, by: The Associated Press

From left to right, Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva forge alliances at a regional integration meeting in Manaos, Brazil, in early October 2008. (Photo: Antonio Lacerda / EPA)

Quito, Ecuador - In a matter of weeks, a Russian naval squadron will arrive in the waters off Latin America for the first time since the Cold War. It is already getting a warm welcome from some in a region where the influence of the United States is in decline.

“The U.S. Fourth Fleet can come to Latin America but a Russian fleet can’t?” said Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa. “If you ask me, any country and any fleet that wants can visit us. We’re a country of open doors.”

The United States remains the strongest outside power in Latin America by most measures, including trade, military cooperation and the sheer size of its embassies. Yet U.S. clout in what it once considered its backyard has sunk to perhaps the lowest point in decades. As Washington turned its attention to the Middle East, Latin America swung to the left and other powers moved in.

The United States’ financial crisis is not helping. Latin American countries forced by Washington to swallow painful austerity measures in the 1980s and 1990s are aghast at the U.S. failure to police its own markets.

“We did our homework - and they didn’t, they who’ve been telling us for three decades what to do,” the man who presides over Latin America’s largest economy, President Luiz Inacio Lula de Silva of Brazil, complained bitterly.

Latin America’s more than 550 million people now “have every reason to view the U.S. as a banana republic,” says analyst Michael Shifter of the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington. “U.S. lectures to Latin Americans about excess greed and lack of accountability have long rung hollow, but today they sound even more ridiculous.”

From 2002 through 2007, the U.S. image eroded in all six Latin American countries polled by the Pew organization, especially in Venezuela, Argentina and Bolivia. (The others were Brazil, Peru and Mexico.) People surveyed in 18 Latin American countries rated President Bush among the least popular leaders in 2007, along with President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and just ahead of basement-bound Fidel Castro of Cuba, according to the Latinobarometro group of Chile.

In three years of presidential elections ending last year, Latin Americans chose mostly leftist leaders, and only Colombia and El Salvador elected unalloyed pro-U.S. chief executives. In May, the prestigious U.S. Council on Foreign Relations declared the era of U.S. hegemony in the Americas over. And in September, Bolivia and Venezuela both expelled their U.S. ambassadors, accusing them of meddling.

Along with the loss in political standing has come a decline in economic power. U.S. direct investment in Latin America slid from 30 percent to 20 percent of the total from 1998 to 2007, according to the U.N. Economic Commission on Latin American and the Caribbean.

The U.S. still does $560 billion in trade with Latin America, but in the meantime other countries are muscling in. China’s trade with Latin America jumped from $10 billion in 2000 to $102.6 billion last year. In May, a state-owned Chinese company agreed to buy a Peruvian copper mine for $2.1 billion.

Other countries are also biting into U.S. military sales in the region. Boeing Co. is vying with finalists from France and Sweden for the sale of 36 jet fighters to Brazil. Venezuela’s Chavez has committed to buying more than $4 billion in Russian arms, from Sukhoi jet fighters to Kalashnikov assault rifles. In April, Brazil and Russia agreed to jointly design top-line jet fighters and satellite-launch vehicles, and Brazil is getting technology from France to build a submarine.

“Similar deals could have been made with the United States had it been willing to share its technology,” said Geraldo Cavagnari, of the University of Campinas near Sao Paulo.

Last month, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin offered to help Chavez develop nuclear power. Even Colombia, the staunchest U.S. ally in South America, isn’t limiting its options. After expressing alarm about the Russian warships a week ago, its defense minister, Juan Manuel Santos, promptly headed for Russia himself to discuss “better relations in defense.” Chavez says he expects to hold joint Russian-Venezuelan naval exercises as early as November.

Bolivia also is looking to deepen ties with Russia and Iran.

Although the Islamic republic’s ambassador has yet to arrive in South America’s poorest country, its top diplomat there announced Friday that Iran will open two low-cost public health clinics.

And while Bolivia’s only announced Russian hardware purchase is five helicopters for civil defense, Moscow’s ambassador told the AP - after Bolivia booted the U.S. ambassador - that Russia has every right to help Latin American nations arm themselves.

“We know of many historical cases of U.S. intervention in Latin American countries,” said the diplomat, Leonid Golubev.

Thomas Shannon, U.S. assistant secretary of state for the hemisphere, wouldn’t comment directly on whether the U.S. has lost influence in Latin America. But he added that there is no doubt that the U.S. still holds most of the military power in the Caribbean, and said it has no interest in reviving “Cold War rhetoric.” Shannon also noted that overall U.S. aid to the region will reach $2.2 billion for 2009, to total more than $14 billion during Bush’s presidency.

However, critics point out that roughly half that aid is for the military or counternarcotics, and that Washington sends more money annually to Israel alone. Even U.S. giving has been dwarfed by Chavez’s checkbook diplomacy, which easily eclipses U.S. aid between outright gifts and discounted oil.

His largesse has lured several longtime U.S. friends. Honduras’ president, Manuel Zelaya, said last month that after pleading with Washington and the World Bank, he accepted $300 million a year from Chavez for agricultural investment to help fight rising food prices.

“Allies, friends, did not help me when I asked,” he said.

Costa Rica’s president, Oscar Arias, says Venezuela offers Latin America about four or five times as much money as the United States. Costa Rica has become the 19th member of Petrocaribe, through which Chavez sells Caribbean and Central American nations cut-rate oil at very low interest.

The diminished profile of the U.S. in Latin America comes after a history of welcomed influence dating back to President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Good Neighbor” policy of the 1930s, which emphasized cooperation and trade over military intervention. There have been major bailouts, such as Washington’s $20 billion rescue of Mexico in the 1994 peso devaluation crisis. As former Assistant Secretary of State Otto Reich noted, “We are the assistance bureau of first choice for the region.”

But the U.S. has an ugly legacy of covert intervention in countries including Chile, Nicaragua, Guatemala and Cuba. Chile’s center-left president, Michele Bachelet, was jailed and tortured by a U.S.-backed military dictatorship in the 1970s. She recently recalled telling Washington’s ambassador to Chile an old joke: “Some say the only reason there’s never been a coup in the United States is because there’s no U.S. Embassy in the United States.”

The United States has also long served as chief educator to Latin America’s elite. Correa is among its presidents with a U.S. graduate degree - though that didn’t stop him from accusing the CIA of infiltrating his military, or refusing to renew a lease for U.S. counterdrug missions to fly out of Ecuador.

With the U.S. facing its own financial crisis, it’s unlikely to be able to leverage economic influence in Latin America anytime soon. Sen. Barack Obama’s senior adviser on Latin America, Dan Restrepo, acknowledges that his candidate is essentially proposing a symbolic shift in style - albeit adding a special White House envoy for the Americas.

“Barack doesn’t see the United States as the savior of the Americas, but as a constructive partner,” Restrepo told the AP.

Reich, an adviser to Sen. John McCain who served three Republican presidents in the region, put it even more bluntly.

“No matter who is elected in November, there is not going to be any money for Latin America,” he said. “Latin Americans expecting financial resources, any kind of help from the United States, they are barking up the wrong tree.”

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Associated Press writers Dan Keane in Bolivia, Eduardo Gallardo in Chile and Stan Lehman in Brazil contributed to this report.

Thirty-five Years Ago, Latin America Experienced Its Own September 11.

by: Teo Ballve, Colombian Writer, The Progressive, September 9, 2008.

In 1970, Salvador Allende became the democratically elected president of Chile. On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean military, supported by Washington, overthrew Allende and in his place a US-financed 17-year regime of terror took over. Latin America, which experienced its own September 11 thirty-five years ago, is no longer under Washington’s thumb.

And Washington, once the unofficial arbiter of the politics and economies of Latin America, has been sidelined, as progressive reformers have claimed victory in an ever-growing number of countries.

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The political waters began turning in 1999 in Venezuela. The country’s leftist president, Hugo Chavez, came from the most unlikely of sources: the military.

Today, left-leaning leaders control almost every country of South America. These leaders are by no means a uniform bunch. But they all share the popular mandate of addressing the needs of the most disadvantaged citizens of Latin America, where nearly half the population of 550 million lives in grinding poverty.

Fulfilling campaign promises, many of these leaders have defied Washington’s economic and political strictures - first introduced in post-Sept. 11 Chile - in trying to lift millions out of poverty.

Bolivia’s Evo Morales and Ecuador’s Rafael Correa have moved to take a larger share of profits from their nations’ vast oil and gas reserves to reinvest the money in anti-poverty programs.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former union organizer, has similar plans for the profits expected from newly discovered massive oil reserves.

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When Allende made similar reforms in Chile, President Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger famously sneered, “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people.” The Nixon administration’s next move was to cut off all multilateral and bilateral foreign aid to Chile, fulfilling Nixon’s order to “make the economy scream.”

From his tragedy, new hope has arisen.

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Teo Ballve is a freelance journalist and editor based in Colombia. He can be reached at  pmproj at progressive.org.

OFFSHORE MAGAZINE, PennWell Corporation, Tulsa, OK - Offshore magazine, first published in 1954, is a monthly publication recognized as the worldwide leader for covering the key issues and trends relative to offshore technology, oil and gas E&P (Exploration and Production) operations. It is the world’s most highly respected magazine dedicated entirely to the offshore industry, and enjoys the highest and most widely read circulation in its class. Since 1910, The PennWell Petroleum Group has been the industry leader for coverage of and service to the worldwide petroleum industry.

Its foundation magazines are Oil & Gas Journal, Offshore, Oil, Gas & Petrochem Equipment, Oil & Gas Financial Journal, LNG Observer and The Petroleum Buyers Guide. The group also produces targeted e-Newsletters, hosts global conferences and exhibitions, seminars and forums, directories and technical books, print and electronic databases, surveys and maps.

We were introduced to http://www.offshore-mag.com because of our interest in the oil finds in Brazil.

Brazil is now at the top of OFFSHORE interest and they plan an upcoming webcast lecture:

(AkerSolutions Technip)

The Petrobras FPSO Experience: Technology Evolution and Application In the US Gulf of Mexico
Date: August 14, 2008
Time: 2:00 PM EDT 11:00 AM PDT 18:00 GMT
Length: Approximately one hour
Speakers: César Palagi, Walker Ridge Production Asset Manager, Petrobras America Inc.

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According to Bloomberg data, Petrobras is the fourth-most valuable company in the Western Hemisphere, behind Exxon Mobil Corp., General Electric Co., and Microsoft Corp. “We think this is part of a major transformation of Petrobras, which could lead to it becoming a much larger company in terms of production and reserves over the next five to 10 years,” Merrill Lynch analysts wrote.

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Brazil in OPEC?

If confirmed, the Carioca-Sugar Loaf find would vault Brazil into the Top 10 countries for oil reserves, ahead of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) such as Nigeria and Libya. It also would surpass the US, point out oil analysts.

Director Estrella, who is known for conservative forecasts, told Offshore that: “Considering the geologically provable dimensions of the whole pre-salt reservoirs, including Santos, Campos, and Espírito Santo basins, plus other prospects, such as geologically estimated recoverable oil and natural gas in the Tupi accumulation, we may be dealing with recoverable volumes very much larger than the current Brazilian proven reserves.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said on several occasions that when Brazil becomes a crude exporter it would like to join OPEC and work to lower oil prices.

Director Estrella pointed to the emergence of a new organization, the National Oil Companies (NOCs), as a forum of exporting and non-exporting countries that meets annually and has a different objective from OPEC: “In my opinion, NOC’s mission, through long-term strategic partnerships, is more interesting for Petrobras and raises the country’s political profile as an uncontestable leader of emerging countries.

I am not in favor of Brazil joining OPEC. New oil producing countries started exporting but did not join OPEC, which in a way is weakening OPEC’s economic and political power.

OPEC is going down the path of political obsolescence.”

While the potential Brazil find could add significant supplies to a global oil market many see as tight, it would likely take the better part of a decade before any of the oil finds its way to consumers. The site will need to be studied further, and many more facilities must be designed, built, and transported before it can start producing oil.

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The OFFSHORE Magazine July 2008 issue (July 7, 2008) includes three articles about Brazil. We give here the references and small parts from these articles:

July 7, 2008
 http://www.offshore-mag.com/display_arti…

Title: “Pre-salt discoveries continue in Brazil. ” (Above is a 6 page article)

by Peter Howard Wertheim, Contributing Editor

Potential for super-giant fields remains to be confirmed in ultra deepwater.

Deep under the Atlantic Ocean, Brazil’s state-controlled Petrobras has made what could prove to be the largest oil discovery in 30 years, and one that would propel the already prospering country into the major league of oil exporters.

The head of Brazil’s upstream regulatory body National Petroleum and Biofuels Agency (ANP), Haroldo Lima, said in April that the find in the Carioca exploration area could contain 33 Bboe, which would make it the world’s fourth-largest field. Lima did not say whether his unofficial estimate was of recoverable reserves or in-place resources and Petrobras did not comment.

Brazil Energy Minister Edison Lobão was quoted as saying on São Paulo’s Estado newswire that he would neither confirm nor deny Lima’s statements. However, he cautioned that any announcement on the extension of oil fields should only be made once the government is certain about the data.

For context, current Brazilian crude oil proven reserves are at 14.4 Bbbl.

Outstanding sequence of discoveries
“This is one of the most impressive oil finds globally in terms of scale,” says David Riedel of New York-based Riedel Research Inc. The deepwater discovery, coming after a similar find announced last year by Petrobras, suggests that the world still has major pools of oil to be found.

For Brazilian analysts, it also casts new doubts on peak oil theory, which postulates that world oil demand will soon outpace supply.

Riedel says uncertainty remains regarding the size of the Carioca discovery on BM-S-9 block, which lays under 2 km (6,562 ft) of water, plus many more kilometers of sand, hard rock, and another 2 km of salt. The exploration area, also called Carioca-Sugar Loaf, is 275 km (171 mi) off the coast of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

“Petrobras is very good at deepwater drilling but this is going to be very complicated stuff to get out of the ground,” he adds.

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July 7, 2008 http://www.offshore-mag.com/display_arti…

Title: “Jubarte field production enhanced with wellbore ESP”. (Above is a 4 page article)

by Marcos Pellegrini, Giovanni Colodette - Petrobras
Ignácio Martinez, Leandro Neves - Baker Hughes Centrilift

1,200-hp subsea system installed.

Through technological advances in ultra deepwater production, the highest horsepower-equipped electric submersible pump (ESP) to date was installed in the 1,400-m (4,593-ft) JUB-6 subsea well in the Jubarte field, offshore Brazil. The system is composed of a 1,200 hp motor and a pump capable of producing over 22,000 b/d of heavy oil (17º API). High flow rates and a longer subsea step-out were the drivers for selecting an ESP system as the artificial lift method for the project. Reliability is one of the main concerns of ESPs, and proper selection of the system for the application was critical for the run life of the equipment.

Operators and service companies are always searching for most cost-effective methods to produce deepwater reserves over the life of the field. Gas lift traditionally has been the preferred artificial lift method in offshore Brazil subsea applications with relatively short step-outs. But when high-flow production of heavy and viscous oil in a long step-out is needed, gas lift is not efficient. Electrical submersible pumping systems are the best option.

Jubarte field: The Jubarte field, in the northern part of the Campos basin, about 80 km (49.7 mi) offshore from the state of Espírito Santo, was discovered in January 2001. An extended well test was performed to evaluate drilling, completion, artificial lift technology, and to verify reserves. Then, Petrobras started Phase 1 production with FPSO P-34. Four wells were planned to produce around 60,000 b/d of oil. Two of the wells are produced using gas lift, the third one is an ESP installation on the seabed, and the fourth is a subsea ESP wellbore installation.

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July 7, 2008 http://www.offshore-mag.com/display_arti…

Drilling zero discharge offshore Brazil in an environmentally sensitive area. (Above is a 3 page article) These drillings are in shallow waters near terrific white sand beaches.

by Perry Morris - El Paso Oil & Gas
Keith Browning, Kevin Redfern - Halliburton

One key element of the El Paso Oil & Gas exploration program offshore Brazil during the recent drilling and completion of the Acai and Cacau exploration wells in the Camamu basin was to ensure compliance with a zero discharge policy. The wells were in a shallow 23 m (75.5 ft) water depth, near shore and 11 km (6.8 mi) from an extremely environmentally sensitive area. Brazilian authorities designated the coastal area as a future recreational development.

Equipment outlay: El Paso contracted Halliburton’s Baroid Surface Solutions services to provide equipment and personnel at the rig site to transport cuttings and drilling waste to a dedicated cuttings barge. To protect the delicate subsea reef environment and the nearby Camamu white sand beaches, El Paso installed booms completely surrounding the Todco 156 rig. The dedicated cuttings barge was moored outside the booms to allow access to the barge for dumping cuttings further out into deepwater. This configuration resulted in a greater distance than normal for cuttings transportation.

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The deepwater oil-finds locations towards the the souther part of Brazil’s coast - the Santos Basin and the Caramba, Sugar Loaf, Carioca, Parati, Tupi and Jupiter discoveries.

Location map of the exploration blocks in Santos basin showing the recent giant and super-giant pre-salt oil and gas discoveries.

The shallow water oil-basins that are close to environmentally sensitive coasts. North of Rio de Janeiro - the Espirito Santo and Camamu basins and the Potiguar basin in the northeast.

The Acai and Cacau exploration wells in the Camamu basin are in a shallow 23 m (75.5 ft) water depth near shore.