Profits at Brazil's Petrobras Reach Record US$ 6.9 Billion
Written by Alana Gandra
Monday, 14 November 2005
During the first nine months of this year, Petrobras - Brazilian Petroleum, S.A. - registered net profits of US$ 6.9 billion, according to the financial report released by the State enterprise on Friday, November 11.
According to the company's press office, this is the largest single-year profit ever made by Petrobras through the month of September. It represents a growth of 23% compared with last year's profits for the equivalent period. The company attributes the positive result to production increases and exports.
Petrobras chalked up US$ 2.29 billion in profits in the third quarter, as against US$ 1.83 billion in the third quarter of 2004, according to calculations presented by the Securities Commission (CVM).
Between January and September of this year, Petrobras' net operating receipts amounted to US$ 44.5 billion, up 20% from last year's total over the same period.
Production Up
Between January and September of this year, average daily petroleum production in Brazil came to 1.667 million barrels, 12% more than the average of 1.487 million barrels produced daily over the same period of 2004.
Average daily production amounted to 1.725 million barrels in the third quarter of this year, up 13% in comparison with the totals for the third quarter of last year.
According to the Brazilian State enterprise, the increase in production volume reflects the start-up of operations at the FPSO (Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading) platforms South Marlin, P-43 (Barracuda), and P-48 (Caratinga), all in the Campos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
The figures announced by Petrobras also indicate that the overall production of petroleum derivatives rose 3% during the first nine months of the year, attaining a daily average of 1.830 million barrels.
According to the company's press office, this corresponds to an 87% utilization rate in terms of Brazil's nominal refining capacity.
The expansion of domestic petroleum production this year helped improved the company's trade balance, according to the company's board of directors: Petroleum exports rose 27% between January and September, in comparison with the same period in 2004, and imports of petroleum and petroleum derivatives declined 22% and 19%, respectively.
The State enterprise registered a trade surplus of US$ 700 million during the first nine months of the year.
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Brazil received a huge boost in its international image with its selection as the host of the 2016 Olympics, but it was really just the cherry on top of the overall recognition of the country's ascension to the ranks of one of the world's most important countries. Now, as it finally takes its place on the world scene, there has been a great deal of concern about what kind of image Brazil hopes to project, now that the world is really paying attention. 
The only good thing to say about the visit to Brazil of Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on Monday November 23, is that it was mercifully short and lasted less than 24 hours. Ahmadinejad had his picture taken being hugged by president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who gave him a warm welcome and said Iran had every right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. 
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. 
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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. 
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