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Brazil's state-controlled oil and gas multinational Petrobras will freeze overseas investments as the company concentrates on its primary role to develop recently discovered offshore oil reserves, CEO Jose Sergio Gabrielli said this Thursday, September 17.
Gabrielli told investors during a presentation in Paris that "international investments are frozen because the volume of opportunities in Brazil is so large." Gabrielli, however, noted that the company would maintain its US$ 174.4 billion 2009-2013 strategic plan, which was released in January.
Petrobras currently plans to invest US$ 15.9 billion in its international operations, with US$ 12.6 billion headed for exploration and production. The company expects international output of 341,000 barrels of oil equivalent by 2013.
On Wednesday Petrobras announced the discovery of another deposit of oil and natural gas in Brazil's Santos Basin. The find was made together with BG Group and Repsol after a fourth well was drilled in the BM-S-9 block off the country's southeastern coast.
The Abaré Oeste field is next to the Carioca, Guará and Iguaçu fields, where the company has already reported the existence of crude.
Petrobras made the announcement as CEO Gabrielli met investors in New York to defend Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's plan to increase control over the energy industry through regulations being debated in Congress.
The rules would allow the government to boost its stake in Petrobras and make the company the sole operator of so-called pre-salt fields, which may more than double Brazil's proven reserves in three years.
"We are in a fantastic moment," Gabrielli was quoted by Bloomberg News. Brazil has the world's biggest potential reserves and the ability "to develop the whole supply chain to provide goods and services to the oil industry," he said.
Petrobras's proven oil reserves may more than double to as much as 35 billion barrels in the next two to three years from about 14 billion currently, Gabrielli underlined
Mercopress
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The small, coastal town of Condé is located just a twenty minute's drive from João Pessoa, the capital of Paraíba. The Northeast of Brazil has historically been a place of encounter and mixing between peoples. For millenia groups of indigenous people fished, farmed, migrated and sometimes fought along this large, fertile area. 
The Brazilian diplo-MÁ-cia (bad diplomacy) carries on its accelerated course towards the non-acknowledgment of human rights, although sometimes it takes pleasure in saying that it does precisely the opposite. The visit of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is another example of a diplomatic omission that verges on hypocrisy. 
On July 4, 2006, representatives of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay met in Caracas to sign the protocol for the entrance of Venezuela into the Southern Common Market (Mercosur). After two and a half years, the protocol was approved by the legislative bodies of Argentina and Uruguay, and as of now it may be only days away from being ratified by the continent's economic megalith, Brazil. 
Some sectors of the fight against AIDS have suggested that Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, committed genocide through his absence from the fight against the illness in his country throughout his two terms. 
One hundred and eleven years after Brazil abolished slavery, the number of workers deprived of their freedom is still huge. They raise cattle, produce charcoal, sugar cane or timber. Some of them, most undocumented Bolivians, work in basements of small apparel factories in São Paulo and other metropolis. 
On November 7, 2009 a few friends and I had an opportunity to take a look inside a Brazilian jail outside the city of Rio de Janeiro. We were able to take some amateur footage of our experience on video (see link below). It's no surprise, of course, that the typical Brazilian jail lacks some of the functionality of those in North America or Europe, but our experience that day was quite shocking. 
Depletion of the Amazon Rainforest is not a new concern facing environmentalists, biologists, ecologists, and a growing number of the Amazonian indigenous peoples. For decades they have feared for the fate of the world's most biologically diverse and species-rich hothouse. 
Geisy Arruda made history this week in Brazil, but for all the wrong reasons. What began as a poorly planned fashion statement has become a worldwide tale. Geisy decided to wear a pink mini-dress to her private college in São Paulo state, and after that, all hell broke loose. 
The push of vigilante groups in Rio de Janeiro's favelas (shantytowns) in the last three years is the most important and alarming information of the just-released study by the Rio de Janeiro University's Violence Research Center (Nupev-Uerj). 
A dispute over drug trafficking territory in Rio de Janeiro has intensified lately, leaving in its wake unprecedented acts of violence, such as the downing of a police helicopter in the northern zone of the city on October 17. Three policemen died and another two were injured. This event has drawn the attention of the international media, who are raising the issue of public security for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Rio.
While most of the developed countries continue to suffer from the quagmire of their economic blunders, leaving a disaster in the making among some developing and underdeveloped countries, Brazil has weathered the storm of the latest energy sector fluctuations and market manipulations with surprising strength.
Given the further expectation of becoming a major "energy exporter, the Brazilian economy is poised for unprecedented growth comparable to the growth in some Asian sectors. The primary challenge accompanying this growth will be the rise in inflation. If not handled correctly inflation in the Brazilian economy could portend internal problems given Brazil's huge poverty levels in the midst of an economic expansion. If a significant portion of the countries new-found wealth does not translate into improving the lives of every Brazilian, or increases basic costs to the middle-class, then all the new wealth will only translate into increased violence and instability within Brazilian society.
It is a fantastic moment, and also a moment to reflect on the possibilities and promise of a just and fair society for all Brazilians. The consequences of corruption and the hunger for equity and equality must be addressed for this fantastic moment to translate into a believable future for all Brazilians. Congratulations and good luck!