The original September 15th posting:

Bolivia crisis summit for Latin American leaders:
Deadly violence over nationalisation campaign of Evo Morales brings intervention led by Chile and Brazil.

guardian.co.uk, Monday September 15 2008

Latin American leaders are to gather in Chile today in an attempt to end a political crisis in Bolivia that has seen more than a dozen people killed.

Violent clashes between supporters of Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and his opponents have led to concern among neighbouring countries. Chile’s president, Michelle Bachelet, who is the temporary president of the 12-member Union of South American Nations, called the emergency summit late last week.

The scale of the protests against Morales’s plans to rewrite Bolivia’s constitution and redirect gas revenues has forced the president to declare a state of siege in some opposition-led provinces. Bachelet said: “We can’t remain impassive in the face of a situation that worries us all.”

***

The violence began two weeks ago. The government says at least 30 people have died in protests in the eastern province of Pando, while local officials put the number at 15.

All the presidents of the continent’s major nations are expected to travel to the summit in Chile today except for Alan García, the president of Peru. He is understood to be sending his foreign minister and has issued a statement supporting the elected Morales government.

Also attending the meeting will be José Miguel Insulza, the secretary general of the Organisation of American States.

The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, could prove the key mediator. Brazil imports half its natural gas from Bolivia. Lula warned last week that the summit could only be effective if proposals from both the Bolivian government and the opposition were represented.

“If the two sides haven’t asked us to meet and we make a decision that neither side will respect, the meeting will end up being useless,” Lula said.

Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, a close Morales ally, hailed the gathering as an “extraordinary summit”. “Fascism must be stopped in Bolivia. A tragedy must be avoided,” he said.

Chávez has backed Morales in accusing the US of supporting the anti-government protests in Bolivia. Both presidents expelled US ambassadors last week. Washington responded in kind while calling the allegations baseless.

Several other Latin American presidents have defended Morales in the diplomatic spat with America. In a statement published on Sunday in Cuba’s communist youth newspaper Juventud Rebelde, Raúl Castro accused Washington of meddling in Bolivia’s internal affairs.

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IN THE MEANTIME  THE US AMBASSADORS WERE EXPELLED FROM VENEZUELA AND BOLIVIA - WILL THIS MOVE EXPAND TO A FEW MORE LA STATES?

————–

At least 28 have died in violence. Evo Morales’ government and the opposition accuse each other of arming paramilitaries.
By Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
September 15, 2008

SANTA CRUZ, BOLIVIA — The death toll in last week’s violence in a remote northern province rose to more than two dozen, Bolivia’s government said Sunday, as it held frantic talks with opponents to avert further bloodshed.

Sporadic clashes were reported Sunday on roads outside this eastern city, center of opposition to President Evo Morales. Many Bolivians expressed fears that a tense situation could spin out of control if a deal was not reached.

***
Venezuela expels U.S. ambassador
Bolivia crisis sparks concern.
Bolivia orders U.S. ambassador expelled.
Each side has accused the other of arming illegal paramilitary groups.

***

“Better that we take action now, before we have 100 or 1,000 dead,” said Gov. Mario Cossio of Tarija province, designated negotiator for the states opposed to Morales.

There was no immediate word on the outcome of the talks in La Paz, the capital.

Rifts have been widening for two years, with intermittent outbursts of violence, but so far Bolivia has avoided falling into full-fledged civil conflict. However, many analysts call the current crisis the nation’s most perilous point in decades.

“Political, civic and union leaders must know that whatever happens from now on — whether this country becomes a peaceful and harmonious society or a battleground — will be because of their work,” the daily La Razon editorialized Sunday.

The government and the opposition called Sunday for an independent investigation into Thursday’s killings in Pando, a sparsely populated province along the Amazonian frontiers with Brazil and Peru.

In La Paz, Interior Minister Alfredo Rada said 10 more bodies had been found. That would bring the death toll to at least 26 in Thursday’s confrontation. Two more deaths were reported Friday in Pando, when the army retook control of the airport in Cobija, the provincial capital. The army is now patrolling the province, which is under martial law.

Rada labeled Thursday’s killings near the town of Porvenir a genocide organized by Pando Gov. Leopoldo Fernandez, an opponent of Morales.

The government has accused the governor and his allies of importing sicarios, or hired killers, from Peru and Brazil to shoot down defenseless peasants allied with the president. Fernandez has denied provoking the violence and blamed the central government for the clash.

On Saturday, Morales called the killings a massacre and told a crowd in the central city of Cochabamba that a “fascist, racist coup” was being mounted.

The conservative leaders of five of Bolivia’s nine provinces are aligned against Morales and his socialist program of nationalizations, land reform and stiff resistance to what he calls U.S. imperialism.

***

Critics call Morales a communist tyrant who seeks dictatorial powers. Morales, who won 67% of the vote in a recall election last month, says his policies have benefited the needy masses in South America’s poorest nation.

Foes of Morales are seeking greater autonomy for their provinces and a bigger share of revenue from gas and oil fields, which are concentrated in the dissident regions. Morales says his rivals want to take away funds that aid the poor and put the cash into plans to break away from Bolivia. The opposition denies separatist or violent motivations.

“We want peace, but with dignity,” said Ruben Costas, the governor of Santa Cruz province and a central opposition figure.

The president has frequently accused Washington of collaborating with his enemies and last week expelled U.S. Ambassador Philip S. Goldberg for allegedly fomenting rebellion. In his farewell address Sunday, Greenberg called Morales’ charges against him “false and unjustified,” and said his expulsion would have “serious effects in many forms.”

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a close Morales ally, tossed out the U.S. envoy in Caracas, saying he acted in solidarity with the Bolivian president. Washington responded by expelling both the Venezuelan and Bolivian ambassadors.

The Bolivian armed forces chief, Gen. Luis Trigo, has rejected Chavez’s offer to send in help should Morales be ousted.

The deteriorating scenario has alarmed Latin American leaders, who have expressed support for Morales. Several nations, including neighboring Brazil and Argentina, have offered to help mediate, but Morales has not agreed.

Today, South American leaders are to gather in Chile for an emergency session aimed at preventing Bolivia’s slide into civil war. Morales reportedly planned to travel to Santiago. The Bolivian opposition has also asked to attend.

The crisis has strong ethnic and regional roots.

Morales, Bolivia’s first Indian president, enjoys massive support among indigenous peasants from the western highlands, where La Paz is situated. Morales has charged that white and mixed-race “oligarchs” in Bolivia’s lowland provinces are out to get him.

“Their plan is to topple the Indian,” Morales told the crowd in Cochabamba this weekend. “They may topple the Indian, but they won’t topple the Bolivian people.”

patrick.mcdonnell @latimes.com

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A Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA) Press Release - September 16th

Bolivia: A Profound Breakdown of Communication with Latin America.
•    Upwards of Thirty Dead in Bolivia
•    The Unforgivable has Again Happened, The Taking of Innocent Life
•    Was the Expulsion of the U.S. Ambassador Inevitable?
•    The import of UNASUR’s Strong but Dignified Role

With UNASUR having just met in Santiago, Chile to discuss the escalating crisis in Bolivia, the stage is set for a huge surge of autonomy for Latin America, owing to a series of newly auto-generated, self-managed and extensive regional initiatives.

In an extraordinary shift from a decades-long hegemonic status-quo during which Washington exercised de facto hemispheric supremacy, the U.S. role has dramatically diminished, at times becoming almost irrelevant.

In fact, even though U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Thomas Shannon, is a relatively enlightened figure who at times has stressed a rational dialogue between Venezuela, Bolivia, and Washington, U.S. attention toward the region, when at all focused, has been willful, narrow-minded, and self-absorbed.

Once installed in office, the Bush administration found itself distracted from Latin American issues by the Iraq war, giving the region the required space to develop its own consensus on regional developments, regardless of Washington’s ululations. This has heightened the ability of hemispheric leaders to halt or reverse some of the most imprudent U.S. policies that had gained ascendancy starting in the Clinton administration, and which then blossomed under Bush. Nevertheless, despite all signs to the contrary, the Bush administration continues to act as if its fiat still is supreme in Latin America, when, in fact, it has rapidly shrunk. An example of this is the revival of the Fourth Fleet as a Washington policy riposte, and with it the pretense of gunboat diplomacy on the ready, after a half-a-century of the fleet being dismasted, and the use of the “terrorism” factor to reassert an authority that is no longer exercisable.

Washington cannot continue to conduct itself as if it had a backyard in which Latin America could be firmly found. The U.S. has been absent from the region for far too long to attempt to roll back the tide of anti-private capital, anti-U.S. sentiment that has swept over much of the region. In its stead, the region yearns for a “third way” and for change. In fact, during this period of unilateral neglect, due to Iraq, the hemispheres started going its own way, coming up with new formulas in its quest to diversify relationships, pluralize its world trade contracts and engage in constructive relations across the board, including forming ties to what Washington, at the time, sees as “rogue” nations. During this period of transition, more left-leaning presidents were being elected president than ever before in the Americas’ history, a raft of regional organizations (which did not include the U.S. as a member) were formed, the region suddenly saw a remarkable rise in its importance on the world stage as its metal and agricultural commodities increased in relevancy and value during the current fuel and food crisis, and new links emerged between Latin America and India, China, Russia, and the EU.

***

The Breakdown of Bilateral Relations:

The latest U.S. flare-up with Bolivia most likely could have been avoided by a non-pro forma U.S. statement categorically declaring that this country would neither recognize nor have any form of relationship with the Santa Cruz-led breakaway departments in the Europerized, somewhat white and wealthy eastern sector of the country, just as Brazil and the other Latin American nations saw fit to do.

Instead, for a number of months U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg assumed the role of quarterback at meetings with the opposition, discussing strategies with his team.

He did this even though the opposition figures had clearly called for extra-constitutional actions against democratically-elected Evo Morales, even his ouster, and in spite of the fact that his widespread support was affirmed in July’s recall elections. (For more information, see COHA Research Associates Chris Sweeney and Jessica Bryant’s article, “Bolivia in Crisis”).

Washington claims that Goldberg’s meetings with the opposition were protocolic and conducted during routine visits to the secessionist regions.

It also insisted that he categorically denies La Paz’s accusations of his signaling support behind the opposition, let alone any involvement in secret plots against the central government. Yet, complicating matters in the Andean country is the fact that any number of U.S. ambassadors throughout Latin America –particularly dating back to the inauguration of the present U.S. administration– have a lengthy record of intervention in the domestic affairs of the countries to which they have been accredited. It is no secret that the State Department has had a long history of inappropriate and often covert intervention in Latin American internal affairs, often making use of a Reagan-era institutional facility known as the National Endowment for Democracy. Goldberg’s predecessors, Manuel Rocha and David Greenlee, persistently inserted themselves into Bolivian domestic issues. This scenario often involved U.S. ambassadors on station elsewhere in the region, where they openly threatening the end of remittances, trade benefits, or U.S. development assistance to a given country, if a leftist regime was elected to office –El Salvador and Nicaragua would be some examples of these. They also have pressured conservative political parties in such countries as Bolivia, El Salvador and Nicaragua to unite behind one candidate in order not to split the vote, allowing the otherwise weaker leftist candidate to ship into office.

Ultimately, a historical memory was invoked of humiliation, plunder and such transgressions as the Chaco war and a spate of U.S.-backed military Juntas under which the largely aboriginal majority of Bolivians have suffered as a result of self-serving past U.S. policies. Such acts of arrogance and intolerance that Washington recurrently has visited upon the region, served to incite the unbridled passions of a man with the Brobdingnagian temper of Hugo Chávez and even the more self-disciplined Evo Morales.

***

Washington Diplomacy or Lack of it:
In Washington’s eye, there always has been a distinction to be made between Evo Morales and his Venezuelan counterpart. While they are very different in temperament and style, the two share some major similarities, one of them being a sense of loyalty and solidarity with one another. What has made them into slippery fish for the Bush administration to handle is that no matter how garish may be their personal stylistic flaws, neither Chávez or Morales can in any manner be condemned for any democratic lapses, lack of human rights observance, nor mistreatment nor abuse of their citizens. You may consider them confrontational non-conformists, or condemn them for their non-adherence to traditional codes of diplomatic behavior, but you cannot cite them for being antipathetic in their behavior towards their own people. Surely there was enough here of democratic substance with which the U.S. could do business.

It is clear that the U.S. remains largely oblivious to the multifaceted developments that are taking place in an increasingly self-confident Latin America. Washington would do well to introduce a sense of perspective on Iraq and terrorism, and turn its attention once again to its vital national interests in this hemisphere. These issues go far beyond drugs, terrorism and security concerns. If the U.S. is to play a constructive role there, it must architect a new relationship with the region that can be deemed credible and taken to heart. Its investment must be more than just a Parthian shot aimed at a token act of respect for their sovereignty and must display an earnest concern for the area’s well-being.

***

UNASUR’s Debuting Role:
If such a re-positioning does not happen soon, it may well be too late for Washington to develop cooperative and mutually beneficial policies. Latin American-led trade agreements such as the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) could appear more sensitive and better adapted to regional well-being than any U.S.-crafted free trade agreement with nations that are too weak, like Costa Rica and Panama, to defend their authentic self-interests against subsidized U.S. farm products. Also, the fledgling Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) joins the Organization of American States as a multilateral, democratic body capable of facilitating regional integration and conflict resolution. The difference is, of course, that the former does not include the U.S. as a member. It is this stunning difference that ultimately could lead to the supplanting of the OAS by UNASUR a development that would be sure to lead to the return of Cuba to a major regional body. At its September 15 emergency meeting on the Bolivia crisis in Santiago demonstrates, the leaders of this multilateral organization are capable of engaging in constructive and balanced dialogue that is certain to profoundly affect the separatists. Refusing to fall prey to the mudslinging in which U.S. diplomacy frequently engages, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa dismissed probing by the press into the possibility of covert U.S. intervention in Bolivia, a charge that Correa himself was not making in other contexts, and he reiterated the support of member states to the restoration of order and preservation of unity in Bolivia.

***

Washington and the Bolivian Blow Up:

The near breakdown of relations between Washington and La Paz in the midst of the Bolivia crisis, perfectly exemplifies the disastrous consequences of the inherent intolerance and disrespect that the U.S. has long exhibited towards the region. Despite La Paz and Washington’s ideological differences, Assistant Secretary Shannon, while being a very significant improvement over his two most recent predecessors, Otto Reich and Roger Noriega, might have used this opportunity to more clearly indicate a U.S. commitment to the spirit as well as the letter of democratically-elected governance in the region, and that any form of separatism would be condemn. More vigorous support of Morales and the central government in the face of the reckless and greedy same plan of the pro-autonomy leaders in Bolivia might have provided a compelling reason for the secessionists to preserve order and avoid the violence which, tragically, has already claimed upwards of thirty lives.

This analysis was prepared by COHA Director Larry Birns and COHA Research Associate Raylsiyaly Rivero
September 16th, 2008

***

COHA Forthcoming Research

Puerto Rico: Another Lone Star?
By COHA Senior Research Fellow Juan Carlos Toledano

Venezuela’s Military in the Hugo Chávez Era
By COHA Research Fellow Alex Sánchez and COHA Research Associate Raylsiyaly Rivero

A Closer Look at the Violence in Bolivia
By COHA Research Associate Mary Tharin

Raul Castro and the Recent Reforms in Cuba
By COHA Research Associate Melissa Penn

Venezuela: Internal Opposition to Chávez
By COHA Research Associate Ruth Rivero
For full article click here

This analysis was prepared by COHA

Tuesday, September 16, 2008 | Press release 08.96

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs, founded in 1975, is an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, tax-exempt research and information organization. It has been described on the Senate floor as being “one of the nation’s most respected bodies of scholars and policy makers.” For more information, please see our web page at www.coha.org; or contact our Washington offices by phone (202) 223-4975, fax (202) 223-4979, or email  coha at coha.org.

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.

On Sept. 11, 1973, the Chilean military, supported by Washington, overthrew the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. It was a day that was burned in the memories of millions of people across the continent.

Allende had come to power in 1970 as a democratic socialist, and his victory raised hopes among Latin Americans that peaceful social change was possible.

But three years later, when military tanks and fighter jets blasted the presidential palace where Allende had taken refuge, those hopes were dashed. Allende took his own life during the attack, and in his place a U.S.-financed 17-year regime of terror took over. The junta, led by Augusto Pinochet, murdered more than 3,000 people and tortured and detained thousands more.

Now, 35 years after Allende’s overthrow, a lot has changed in Latin America. For starters, Chile’s current president (Michelle Bachelet) is not only a woman, but also a member of Allende’s Socialist Party.

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.

***

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.

Morales also plans to use windfall gas profits in Bolivia - the poorest country in South America - to strengthen its faltering social security system.

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

***

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.”

Despite persistent U.S. meddling, it’s hard to see how Washington could once again so recklessly block the desperately needed reforms now sweeping Latin America. When it has recently tried to impose its will, Latin American governments have fended off Washington by banding together.

The region’s new leaders finally are implementing policies that make real improvements in people’s lives. Allende tried to do so, but he was not allowed to see them through to fruition.

From his tragedy, new hope has arisen.

——–

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

The article in the New York Sun is based on a posting by Brad Setser on a Council of Foreign Relations (New York City) site that shows that since the 4th quarter of 2004 the autocracies’ wealth increases drastically, and the wealth of the liberal democracies that are dependent on oil imports has actually decreased in the first half of 2008 by 40% compared to the 4th quarter of 2007. The correlation with the price of oil is obvious - so is obvious the future lack of political independence of a country that depends on borrowing money from the rich autocracies that buy into its paper debt. Losing the will to react against its lenders will predictably turn the US into a paper tiger. Is that why those countries continue to invest in its paper debt? I have never seen a better justification for the need of the US to go for an Apollo-type project to beat its addiction on oil imports. The US independence is depending on this!

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.

***

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.

***

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.

***

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. 

We love, personally, Brazil - and have many friends in this stirring giant of a country. www.SustainabiliTank.info has much to thank to Brazil since our early visits to the country close to 35 years ago. Our Brazil button on this web - shows this only in small part. It was in Brazil we learned about the power Renewable Energy has to free us of all those effects that result from the addiction to petroleum. Furthermore, it was a nuclear physicist, Prof. Jose Goldemberg of Sao Paulo who made it clear to us, already then, that nuclear power is no solution. It was Dr. Jaime Rothstein of Sondotecnica, Rio de Janeiro, who already then showed us how the economy can benefit from moving away from oil imports and grow from local programs. He wrote those ideas up still at the time that Brazil was run by Generals and I witnessed how he presented his ideas to them and they saw the clear National interest in what he was saying.

We also love Fortaleza - the town in the State of Ceara, Northeast of Brazil - pushing 3 million people (in reality nobody knows the exact number of inhabitants - this because of the fact that the boom in the city has attracted additional people from the country-side) and that sits on the “shoulder” of Brazil. We were introduced to this town by Professor Jose Oswaldo Carioca who was the Rapporteur from Brazil, on topics of Biomass, to the preparatory meeting of the UN Conference on New And Renewable Sources of Energy (UNCNRSE - Nairobi, 1981). We have been many times to Fortaleza - and kept up contact with him and his people from the University of Ceara - the last time at the meeting in November 2007 that dealt with Green Chemistry.

Brazil’s secret is that with 185 million people it is dependent on the US only for 2.5 percent of its gross national product, compared with 25 percent of G.N.P. for Mexican exports - so, if the US economy slows down it does not have to have a major impact on Brazil. Brazil has a huge internal market, and the moment former President - Professor Henrique Cardozo - understood this - and made a go for developing this market by helping the poor and not only worry about the rich, and when his successor - “Lula” (Fernando Henrique Cardoso) of labor-leader fame, continued these policies of respecting the conventional economy while at the same time enhancing the social aspects of the country - Brazil started to boom. Brazil today is the Latin progressing giant that did not get stuck in populism rhetoric, but did go directly for fattening up the ranks of its middle class.

We follow on this website the Brazilian effort to open further doors to its economy in the US - as spearheaded by its diplomats and business people at the Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce (BACC) headquartered in New York. Today I was full of surprise by the practical recognition of The New York Times - as evidenced by the Center-Front-Page serious reporting on Brazil that originated in Fortaleza. Brazil is following China and India, as third developing country that makes progress by having turned to help its own poor people. Sure, with a population only as big as 1/6.5 as the two larger upstarts, but with a territory their size, and natural riches that are immense, it has the potential to move forefront lined up with these other two giants. As it is becoming also an oil power - the sky is the limit - and the Brazilian diplomacy starts showing its muscle. So, the article’s timing, as a follow up to the crash of the WTO negotiations, should be viewed as a warning to the US that some countries - now led by China, India, and Brazil, will not allow themselves pushed around by a US-EU leadership that thinks very little of the impact of economic decisions on those “others.” China, India, and Mexico will suffer if the US and EU economies falter, but not Brazil. The Brazilians will just simply continue with their “Bolsa Familia” social programs and their successful microcredit programs, spearheaded by government banks like the Bank of the Northeast, and get more and more people to buy refrigerators and TVs. They will expand electricity use, and will drive using biofuels. They seriously develop solar, wind, and sea-wave technologies - and at their own pace the huge oil resource they found off-shore. I said “at their own pace,” because they are in no hurry to deplete those resources because others want to buy the oil. They will release some of this oil to the market - and this as refined products - just about as much as they think that is needed as funds for their national development program. We hope that they will not allow anyone to push them beyond as far as they find it to be to their own interest. Exporting soy beans and products, as well as other agricultural products, and ores, is just fine. They are going also for high-tech and medicines. All what they want is access to markets - like the ethanol market in the US and in Europe. If these are not forthcoming, there is no push to give in to demands by other economic powers. So, please read the following article carefully - so it is getting clear why Brazil can indeed afford to stand up to these other powers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Strong Economy Propels Brazil to World Stage. Strong Economy Propels Brazil Into Long-Anticipated Global Role.

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
Published: July 31, 2008, The New York Times - FRONT PAGE MAJOR ARTICLE.

From FORTALEZA, Brazil — Desperate to escape her hand-to-mouth existence in one of Brazil’s poorest regions, Maria Benedita Sousa used a small loan five years ago to buy two sewing machines and start her own business making women’s underwear. Also - Recent oil discoveries off the coast of Rio de Janeiro State have led to a construction boom in the port town of Angra dos Reis.

Riding a Wave of Growth:

Today Ms. Sousa, a mother of three who started out working in a jeans factory making minimum wage, employs 25 people in a modest two-room factory that produces 55,000 pairs of cotton underwear a month. She bought and renovated a house for her family and is now thinking of buying a second car. Her daughter, who is studying to be a pharmacist, could be the first family member to finish college.

“You can’t imagine the happiness I am feeling,” Ms. Sousa, 43, said from the floor of her business, Big Mateus, named after a son. “I am someone who came from the countryside to the city. I battled and battled, and today my children are studying, with one in college and two others in school. It’s a gift from God.”

Today her country is lifting itself up in much the same way. Brazil, South America’s largest economy, is finally poised to realize its long-anticipated potential as a global player, economists say, as the country rides its biggest economic expansion in three decades.

That growth is being felt in nearly all parts of the economy, creating a new class of super rich even as people like Ms. Sousa lift themselves into an expanding middle class.

It has also given Brazil new swagger, providing it, for instance, with greater leverage to push for a tougher bargain with the United States and Europe in global trade talks. After seven years, those negotiations finally broke down this week over demands by India and China for safeguards for their farmers, a clear sign of the rising clout of these emerging economies.

Despite investor fears about the leftist bent of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva when he was elected to lead Brazil in 2002, he has demonstrated a light touch when it comes to economic stewardship, avoiding the populist impulses of leaders in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Instead, he has fueled Brazil’s growth through a deft combination of respect for financial markets and targeted social programs, which are lifting millions out of poverty, said David Fleischer, a political analyst and emeritus professor at the University of Brasília. Ms. Sousa is one such beneficiary.

Long famous for its unequal distribution of wealth, Brazil has shrunk its income gap by six percentage points since 2001, more than any other country in South America this decade, said Francisco Ferreira, a lead economist at the World Bank.

While the top 10 percent of Brazil’s earners saw their cumulative income rise by 7 percent from 2001 to 2006, the bottom 10 percent shot up by 58 percent, according to Marcelo Côrtes Neri, the director of the Center for Social Policies at the Getulio Vargas Foundation in Rio de Janeiro.

But Brazil is also outspending most of its neighbors on social programs, and overall public spending continues to be nearly four times as high as what Mexico spends as a percentage of its gross national product, Mr. Ferreira said.

The momentum of its economic expansion is expected to last. As the United States and parts of Europe struggle with recession and the fallout from housing crises, Brazil’s economy shows few of the vulnerabilities of other emerging powers.

It has greatly diversified its industrial base, has huge potential to expand a booming agricultural sector into virgin fields and holds a tremendous pool of untapped natural resources. New oil discoveries will thrust Brazil into the ranks of the global oil powers within the next decade.

Yet while exports of commodities like oil and agricultural goods have driven much of its recent growth, Brazil is less and less dependent on them, economists say, having the advantage of a huge domestic market — 185 million people — that has grown wealthier with the success of people like Ms. Sousa.

In fact, with a stronger currency and inflation mostly in check, Brazilians are on a spending spree that has become a prime motor for the economy, which grew 5.4 percent last year.

They are buying both Brazilian goods and a rising flood of imported products. Many businesses have relaxed credit terms to allow Brazilians to pay for refrigerators, cars and even plastic surgery over years instead of months, despite some of the highest interest rates in the world. In June the country reached 100 million credit cards issued, a 17 percent jump over last year.

At Casas Bahia, a modestly priced Brazilian furniture-store chain, the number of customers buying items on installment nearly tripled to 29.3 million from 2002 to 2007, said Sônia Mitaini, a company spokeswoman.

Riding a Wave of Growth - continued:

Other signs of new wealth abound. In Macaé, an oil boomtown near Rio de Janeiro, contractors are racing to finish new shopping malls and luxury housing to keep up with demand from oil-service firms. At a port in Angra dos Reis, a town known for its spectacular islands, some 25,000 workers have found jobs building oil platforms.

Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company, shocked the oil world in November when it announced that its Tupi deepwater field offshore of Rio de Janeiro could hold five billion to eight billion barrels of oil. Analysts think there could be billions of barrels more in surrounding areas.

While the oil will be expensive and complicated to extract, Petrobras has said it expects to be producing up to 100,000 barrels a day from Tupi by 2010, and hopes to produce up to a million barrels a day in about a decade.

The new oil plays are setting off an investment boom in Rio de Janeiro, with an estimated $67.6 billion expected to flow into the state by 2010, according to the Rio de Janeiro State Federation of Industries, an industry group. Petrobras alone expects to invest $40.5 billion by 2012.

Some economists say a slowdown in the rest of the world’s economy, especially in Asia, which is soaking up much of Brazil’s exports of soybeans and iron ore, could crimp growth here. “But that probability is small,” said Alfredo Coutiño, the senior economist for Latin America for Moody’s Economy.com.

In fact, because Brazil’s economy has become so diversified in recent years, the country is less susceptible to a hangover from the struggling United States economy.

Brazil’s exports to the United States represent just 2.5 percent of Brazil’s gross national product, compared with 25 percent of G.N.P. for Mexican exports, according to Moody’s.

“What makes Brazil more resilient is that the rest of the world matters less,” said Don Hanna, the head of emerging market economics at Citibank.

The rest of the world certainly has helped. Soaring prices for minerals and other commodities have created a new class of super rich.

The number of Brazilians with liquid fortunes exceeding $1 million grew by 19 percent last year, third behind China and India, according to a survey by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini.

At the same time, President da Silva has deepened many of the social programs begun 10 years ago under Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who as president ushered in many of the structural reforms that laid the foundations of Brazil’s stable growth today.

In Ms. Sousa’s case, for instance, she owes much of the success of her underwear business to loans she has received from the Bank of the Northeast, a government-financed bank that has awarded microloans to 330,000 people to develop businesses in this fast-growing region.

Other programs, like Bolsa Familia, give small subsidies to millions of poor Brazilians to buy food and other essentials. Bolsa Familia, which benefits 45 million people nationwide in distributing an annual budget of about $5.6 billion, has been far more effective at raising per-capita incomes than recent increases in the minimum wage, which has risen 36 percent since 2003.

The bottom-up nature of such social programs has helped expand formal and informal employment as well as the Brazilian middle class. The number of people under the poverty line — defined as those earning less than $80 a month — fell by 32 percent from 2004 to 2006, Mr. Neri said.

The programs have been particularly effective here in Brazil’s northeast, historically one of poorest parts of the country. Residents here have received more than half the $15.6 billion doled out in social programs from 2003 to 2006, according to Empresa de Pesquisa Energetica, an arm of the Energy Ministry.

People here are using that new wealth to buy items like televisions and refrigerators at a faster rate than the rest of the country. The northeast, in fact, passed the country’s south in electricity use this year for the first time, the energy agency said.

Many families have bridged the gap to the middle class by using Bolsa Familia to meet basic needs, and then applying for small loans to start businesses and escape the informal economy. That is what Maria Auxiliadora Sampaio and her husband did in Fortaleza, a coastal city of 2.4 million people. They were receiving Bolsa Familia payments of about $30 a month, which they used to support their three children. Then, two years ago, Ms. Sampaio used a microloan of about $190 to buy nail polish and kick-start her manicure business, which she runs from home.

Today she is making around $70 a day — about four minimum salaries per month, she said. With her next loan she plans to put about $140 toward a stove to sterilize nail clippers, which today she does with hot water.

The fruits of her new business have allowed the couple to retile their house and buy a television and a cellphone. This month her husband, who works at a Cachaça factory, was able to realize a dream: to buy a drum set.

He plans to use it in a band that plays forró, a traditional music in the northeast. “We always ate and paid bills, but he waited and waited,” and finally bought the set for about $780, she said.

“I feel like we are part of this group of people that are coming up in the world,” said Ms. Sampaio, 28. “When you don’t have anything, when you don’t have a profession, don’t have the means to live, you are no one, you are a mosquito. I was nothing. Today, I am in heaven.”

 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/world/…