|
 Brazil's state-controlled oil company Petrobras, Venezuela's PDVSA and two Argentine groups are all interested in buying US oil corporation Esso (a subsidiary of American Exxon Mobil) assets in South America, reports Buenos Aires business newspaper El Cronista.
Brazil and Venezuela's oil corporations will be tendering mainly for the South American assets of retreating Esso and Pampa Holding and Eduardo Eunerkian have opted for assets in Argentina, according to industry sources quoted in the press.
Sources also indicated that Argentina's government owned energy company, Enarsa has leaked that whoever finally takes over Esso assets "will have us as an associate in the enterprise."
Apparently Petrobras is favored to keep Esso's refinery and 500 gasoline stations in Argentina given the "good relations with Exxon Mobil", and with the Argentine government. This opens the door to other proposals in the rest of the continent.
Venezuela's PDVSA is also interested but has "strained relations" with Exxon given the nationalization process launched by President Hugo Chavez and is proposing an exchange for one of its Citgo refineries, the international name under which PDVSA operates in United States.
Pampa Holding which belongs to Argentine businessman Marcelo Mindlin and with interests in the energy industry has offered US$ 325 million for Argentina's Esso's assets.
The Eurnekian group commands Aeropuertos Argentina 2000, which manages 32 air terminals in Argentina, Uruguay's main airport Carrasco and is an associate in Milan's Malpensa. But the group is also involved in a bio-fuel plant in the Argentine province of Santa Fe and has tendered for oil leases in Chile.
The Esso bidding process is in the hands of JP Morgan bank.
Mercopress
 |
Subscribe to this comment's feed
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. 
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.
Simple
Believing otherwise is an herersy.