l E Brazil's future rests in the depths of the Atlantic. Offshore, to 8,000 meters deep, compared to the tropical coast linking Rio and Sao Paulo, wait for 50 million of years an ocean of oil that can change the destiny of this country twenty times greater than Spain. A tsunami black gold can overcome poverty and become the sixth largest in the world, a spokesperson for the emerging countries, Latin American leader, member of the Security Council, to finance their education, health and research. Building a strong national industry. And prove he can escape the eternal curse of repression, corruption and inequality that carry the major oil producers in the world, from the monarchies of the Persian Gulf to Nigeria, Iran or Venezuela. " The Oil is the excrement of the devil, a curse that removes the patient's will to heal, "she theorizes the political scientist and former Minister of Industry Venezuelan Moises Naim. Faced with this model of absolute dependence on oil exports, Brazilian leaders wield their second way: "Unlike traditional oil-producing states with considerable reservation, low-tech and industry, a small internal market and a lot of instability, we have strong reservations, but we have high technology, a diversified industrial base, a large domestic market and, above all, stability.
In April 2006, Lula cried with his hands stained with oil, "God is Brazilian" all new oil revenues will go to a social fund poverty
E l oil business is reviving the industry in the country
Brazil still has 40 million poor people, but they are half that 15 years ago
To understand inequality Brazil's social you have to climb up the favelas
Brazil is different. That is at least the design outlined by the old fellow metal unionism Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, 64, during his two terms as president. The secret of his political success has been the balance. Caution in economic and social boldness on the plane. And stability, "very stable", an adjective reiterated pride in the President's Men. Brazil is a reliable and influential. It has 40 million poor people, but are proportionally half that 15 years ago. And the number is declining. And the middle class, rising. "Not to be a rich country and outcast. not want diamonds Blood, but democracy and progress, "describes a political party Rio dos Trabalhadores, Lula's political education:" We take this unique opportunity offered by the oil, create wealth and reach each person. Forward. Participate in technology and research. We do not want to export oil and import everything else to shake us out every time the price of oil falls.
Brazil, the eternal dormant giant is about to awaken. It is stretching. The oil is the big fuse, but not forget that will host World Cup 2014 and will host the 2016 Olympic Games; will build the first high speed train on the continent and is making huge investments in infrastructure, housing, education and social protection. That money has to come out of oil and its derivatives.
a very expensive business and very profitable. In the oil industry, time is money. A minute of drilling in ultradeep water costs 5,000 euros. In a shielded room with walls covered by monitors in the heart of Repsol's headquarters in Rio de Janeiro is reflected every movement of its drilling rig Stena DrillMax I operating 190 miles off the coast of Macae. Is displayed on every inch screen that runs through his drill into the seabed; The composition of each material in penetrating, resistance and temperature, and the time remaining to reach the oil. Since the start of an offshore exploration until it begins to produce it may take ten years. Not a business for people with heart.
The Stena came to Brazil to drill the block BM-C-33, in the Campos Basin, two months ago, from the Gulf of Mexico, Repsol paid a million a day in rent for this platform (their teams and crew of 180 people from 20 nationalities), which will remain in these waters until January before heading to a new block offshore Brazil, the geologists say that oil is at a depth of 6,583 meters. The Stena drilling 24 hours a day. The graphs are in this room surely RTO (Real Time Operation) claim already reached 4,494 meters. The oil may be near. First we have to cross a barrier of salt viscous gelatin shifting as more than a kilometer thick. Few data provided to us geologists. All information used in this white room with no windows is confidential. English oil company is played in Brazilian waters hundreds of millions of investment, future reserves and its reputation and share price. You do not have time to waste.
funny thing is that Brazil has never been a power oil. On the contrary. It was one of the largest producers of meat, coffee, soybeans, cocoa, timber, rubber, sugar, fruit juice, grain, iron, uranium and emeralds. All under a generous sun and watered for the first freshwater reserve in the world. As grand national anthem reads, "Giant of the nature / you're beautiful, you are strong, fearless giant." No lie. Impress lost in this vast territory between lakes and endless forests where vegetation covers hundreds of miles of coastline, crops are endless and 80% of energy is hydroelectric. Brazil had anything but oil. A mid-fifties 95% imported oil consuming. It was the reverse of other Latin American countries like Mexico or Venezuela, who operated from their generous deposits thirties. The Brazilian exploration success is the result of fifty years of perseverance. An obsession to go deeper, farther. And consider oil as a strategic resource, not a supplier of easy money. In those first steps a slogan coined in Brazil reveals the importance for the national pride of the state control of oil: "O Nosso é oil (oil is added.) The engineer says Petrobras, the Brazilian national oil company: "The key was to seek self-sufficiency energy, not to become exporters. We never thought to enter OPEC. We wanted to create an oil and petrochemical industry. Manufacture. Learn the business and launch overseas operations. And we are working in 27 countries. It was a distance race. When we are satisfied that there was no oil on the ground, we set out to sea, we were the first and we have accumulated experience, in 1977 descended to 124 meters. And we continue to scientific knowledge as it would allow. Today, our record is drilling at 7,000 meters on the seabed after crossing a water depth of some 3,000.
success was hard to get. In the seventies, Brazil still imports 80% of the fuel. Their dependence on oil imports was such that after the first oil crisis of 1973, the military government promoted the production of ethanol from sugar cane as a substitute for gasoline. Today, most Brazilian cars run on a blend of gasoline and 25% ethanol. 80% of vehicles manufactured in this country and supports the composition, which poses to the country a daily saving of more than 500 million gallons of gasoline. Also opted for nuclear energy with the construction of two plants and a third project. Apart from these alternatives energy, successive governments in dictatorship or democracy, never stopped exploring the ocean. It was a matter of state.
mid-eighties, the geologists were finally certain that tens of billions of barrels of oil waiting buried in the Santos Basin. Fields extending to the neighboring basins of Campos and Espirito Santo over an area equivalent to one third of Spain. The issue was to reach them, remove them and bring them ashore. More difficult still to remain trapped under a layer of salt two kilometers was impossible at that time visualization and extraction. These deposits, which are called pre-salt , represented one of the largest oil reserves in the world at a time in which traditional farmers were beginning to show signs of exhaustion. A stroke of luck. There used to exploit them.
The challenges faced by Brazil's public oil companies to undertake exploration and development of these deposits were enormous. To begin, they needed funding. Lots of money. And you had to catch it out. Technically, the project was so complicated as to reach the moon. Had to go down a pipe over a sheet of more than 2,000 feet of water to bottom and from de ahí perforar 6.000 metros más. Brasil no contaba con equipos ni expertos. Había que formarlos. Y crear una base industrial que fabricara en poco tiempo las plataformas y también una estructura logística capaz de trasladar esos materiales, personal y provisiones hasta decenas de bloques perdidos a 300 kilómetros de la costa. Y transportar el crudo a tierra. Los problemas no acababan ahí. Durante la perforación existía el riesgo de que la sal cerrara los pozos y que las tuberías se rompieran por la presión del agua; y al final se podía dar con un pozo seco después de haber invertido 100 millones de euros (20 veces más de lo que cuesta perforar en el desierto saudí). El porcentaje success in finding oil rarely exceeds 30%. And if there is oil, you go with empty hands. And back again. From the base
offshore of Niteroi, just outside Rio de Janeiro, we have a perfect view of the capital. The wild green hills that surround it, the shantytowns that climb precariously balanced to their summits, town devilish, the endless white beaches and the elegant Copacabana rationalist towers inspired by the architecture of Niemeyer. These old springs, dormant for years, have been converted in recent months in a huge logistics center that serves the 300 platforms installed in offshore fields and another 300 will enter service in the coming years. The bay appears platforms strewn with construction or maintenance. One rests its 190 feet above the pier as an inert Eiffel Tower waiting to be assembled, thrown out and dragged to an oil block to 300 miles away. On it will install a module the size of a five-story building that will process the gas extracted from the seabed. The decrepit state-owned shipyards in this area of \u200b\u200bRio have been reborn after years of decline. Brazil needs to build not only hundreds of drilling rigs and production that used to come from Asia, also 150 tankers and support vessels. And turbines, probes, drills, pipes, tools, subsea equipment, pipelines. And half a dozen refineries. And petrochemical complexes. There is work for 20 years. At full speed. Every delay means losing money. The oil industry is picking up all of the country. From steel to textiles and communications, from seismic studies to the storage of oil, gas treatment and fertilizer production. By law, at least 60% of each widget used in the exploration and production must be made in Brazil. There is talk of 250,000 jobs.
But 10 years ago, in late the nineties, Brazil had neither the money nor the technology and technicians needed to squeeze the bottom of the sea. The country was drowned in particular economic crisis, the effect samba. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave a daily slap on the wrist. No power was willing to risk a dollar in this country ravaged by poverty and corruption. Even less with a barrel of oil traded sharply. Between a rock and a hard place, the government opened the oil business to foreign companies. Broke the monopoly. It was a risky move and smart. In 1999, Brazil held the first bidding round, in which dozens were taken to auction of oil blocks in the sea. The tenderers should explore at your own risk during a certain period of time and, if they found oil, pay the state taxes, royalties and some oil, the rest was wholly owned. They were also required to allocate 1% of the value of production research in Brazil. The company that was willing to transfer technology and make the most of their equipment in this country had much livestock for concessions. The model worked. Money flowed and intelligence. And Brazil began to suck knowledge. It successfully attacked deposits pre-salt. Up to 87% of wells drilled had oil. A miracle. On April 21, 2006, President Lula, mono hull tanker and pawn, announced by the oil-soaked hands on the platform P-50 Petrobras in the Campos basin, the country's oil self-sufficiency. The beginning of a new era. Two million barrels a day. He had lit the fuse. The next three years would mean an endless drip of great discoveries in propaganda cheered by the Government. Click on the pre-salt deposits means finding quality oil. The technicians talk about five million barrels daily in 2020. "God is Brazilian", the old union cry out. "Now is the day of our second independence."
Things were changing. Brazil, which has never been a powerhouse in the production of crude oil, could become the sixth planet's oil region and a new element of energy balance compared to the turbulent Persian Gulf countries, Algeria, Russia or Venezuela. Neither Repsol, the English multinational resulting from the merger and privatization in 1997 of several public companies of Franco, he had played before in the big leagues of oil. He was a respected company, but second, focused on refining and distribution. I had never opted for the expensive and profitable business of exploration. In the early 2000s, had his reservations empty fridge. He had suffered setbacks in several petro in Latin America. Needed to make discoveries. His strategists put the view in Brazil and its new policy to attract foreign companies. Repsol played hard. It was their chance to ascend to the first division. The
took advantage. Roberta Camuffo, a geologist and exploration manager tanned company in America, landed in Rio de Janeiro in 2004. "We had no computer," she recalls. "Our idea was to make a study deep in the areas they wanted to choose. And creating a network of relationships with the Brazilian government. Become partners with Petrobras. Go together. Share risk. We are Latinos and we got along well. We create a prestige and pocket scratch our research of the blocks. We study the ground and pujamos. All this previous work allowed us to us between 2005 and 2006 with 24 blocks, which are operators (ie exploration and production head) of 11, paying very low prices for what later has become Brazil when it has been confirmed the enormous wealth of pre-salt. Now there slapping to get here and so there are blocks available. There are no auctions. Oil is the state and the state wants to exploit it on their own and that foreign companies are mere services. "Repsol's top executive in Brazil, the engineer Javier Moro, a veteran of exploration worldwide, says Repsol has now "with the second owner of exploration in Brazil after Petrobras and ahead of the world's most powerful oil companies." The English company has won the second largest oil producing country and has not stopped performing discoveries, such as mega-gas fields Carioca and Guara, and this year, Vamoira wells, or Piracucá Panorámix, "a report section Brazilian consultancy Llorente y Cuenca. Just what is estimated to be removed in the field of Guará is two years of oil consumption in Spain.
Repsol was in the right place at the right time. Before the great discoveries offshore the years 2007, 2008 and 2009 put the Western oil majors, the majors , on the track in Brazil and the Government closed the tap of concessions to avoid ending up with the goose golden eggs. Was it a simple matter of luck? Responds an industry executive : "Luck is an important factor in the world of oil, but you look for it. This is a high risk business and long term, and with thee calibrate and manage these risks. It is not throwing the coin. Repsol was the first foreign partner Petrobras when not everyone was willing to put a dollar in Brazil. They have been pioneers in the good times and bad. And now they are sitting on a sea of \u200b\u200boil. And no one will be removed. The Brazilian government will respect the concessions. The rules of the game are clear. "
The virtuous circle of Brazil has to close in ten years. Within a decade, everything has to fit. President Lula, who leaves office in October 2010 because they can not stand for a third reelection, said that state revenues from pre-salt be invested in a social fund for education, science and technology and the fight against poverty. Trauma According to Thomas, CEO of the consulting Llorente y Cuenca in Brazil, "the Government's intention is to invest in long-term debt, as the oil and gas do not last forever and the international oil market is very volatile."
The model is Norway. A country that came into this business in the mid-seventies and has become a unique and unobtrusive oil power handled with caution from the state. While his debut as one of the largest exporters of crude oil, the Nordic country has built an industry itself, from the wellhead to the refinery, has trained its technicians, attracted the majors and invested the profits in a sovereign wealth fund , the largest of the West, which handles 300,000 million euros, whose interests plugging the leaks in the country and will involve a luxury lifeboat when oil runs out in its waters. Norway has escaped the curse of oil. The devil's excrement. Norway is the model.
But Brazil is not Norway. It is a cold and deserted Nordic social democracy. Its population has doubled in just 40 years. Has 190 million inhabitants. A percentage 25% poverty. Huge rates of violence. Poor infrastructure and low education levels. Excessive bureaucracy and corruption. Serious environmental problems in the Amazon. Regional imbalances between the impoverished north and the sunny south. And a huge and historical inequality in the distribution of wealth. Oil has to be the engine of change. The cornerstone. While some already think that Lula da Silva is creating excessive expectations for the pre-salt overlooking the October elections, which concur his protege, Dilma Rousseff, 61, former Minister of Energy, which is the brain in the shadow of the new Brazilian oil model, but lacks the electoral pull of his mentor. The CEO of a major Western oil opinion that it should be cautious: "They're getting a lot of rabbits out of the hat from the government. Everyone can make speculative calculation you want about the size of the deposits of pre-salt . It even talk of 150,000 million barrels (more than half the reserves of Saudi Arabia), when most sensible calculations do not exceed 50,000 million. We are talking about very large quantities, but it will be years before they can be developed commercially. " How much will it cost to get a barrel that depth? and put it on the coast? Will it be profitable? very careful not to compromise figures. " When suggested to a senior Brazilian official that his country's oil explosion has some tale of dairy notes with you scowl, he resorts to the hackneyed political stability and macroeconomic figures bright and concludes: "The people are poor, but less poor than it was when it was Lula. This is a national project. We have a sense of progress in the long term to 2020, not something associated with large events. We are not going to go head " . Where
best understood structural problems and social inequality in Brazil is suffering from the favelas. Ten minutes from the elegant mansions in the neighborhood of Ipanema, the old bar Vinicius de Moraes, where you can still hear every night at Mary Creuza, the diva of bossa nova , one reaches the border of the favela Cantagalo Pavão / Pavãozinho. It is impossible to enter this territory without a good contact. Here life is worthless. A policeman dies every day in some of the 1,000 favelas of Rio where there are still a million Cariocas sat back in the hills and are recognized by thousands of automatic weapons. Our good man is Rubem Cesar Fernandes, 66, anthropologist and reprisals by the military dictatorship (1964-1985) and leader of the NGO Viva Rio, the most widespread among the slums of the city, fighting for its pacification and integration. Here the houses are brick hovels without plastering, electricity pole is stolen, there is no sports fields, clinics, schools, police stations, churches and municipal offices. Neither public transport and sanitation. As we walk through the dusty streets of Cantagalo, among wretched shops, kids with no direction and looks suspicious, Rubem Cesar explains his theory of informality in Brazil: "This is an informal country, in its economy, its labor market, in the occupation of public spaces, millions of immigrants from the rural exodus came to these hills in the sixties, and the State could not and was unable to care for them, the state did not reach here. The urban development of the favelas was left at the expense of poor people settled as he could, built their homes and creating an informal partnership was led by bands that express their neighbors and are financed by extortion and drugs. Here the law does not exist. We focus on educating the young and urban integration plans, break down barriers, which the Administration to enter and stay, we must formalize : give land titles to residents, creating infrastructure. There is inertia in Brazil not to confront what informal. And now oil is our great promise for the future. Lula wants to become the slums in poor neighborhoods but integrated. Take the bull by the horns, as you say. "
Our goal in the favela of Cantagalo is Space Criança Esperança. As was once a luxury hotel ghost hanging over the beautiful Lake Rodrigo de Freitas, Jairo doctor Coutinho, 62, a former fellow traveler and advisor to President Lula, runs a wonderful school and frequent coexistence thousands of inhabitants of the favela. And it is possible that spring afternoon to start a conversation around a soda Guarana with blacks and whites, descendants of slaves and Portuguese soldiers, older gang members, street children, cops Special Resources Coordinator feared and neighbors who work in Rio and confess feel discriminated against and embarrassed to live in a favela. This center has not escaped the gang wars. A few years ago, during a gunfight, a bullet was to be embedded in one wall. Jairo Coutinho wanted to stay there. Preserves the view. Around it has grown a huge mural. Called the bullet peace. is a symbol.
Brazil is changing fast. The promise of oil is transforming the country. Have exploited the industry around new cities such as Macao or Itaborai, villas reminiscent of the Wild West gold rush American erected in weeks and that lack of everything. In this regard, many begin to wonder about the environmental future of the country. How it may affect industrial progress unleashed the face of Brazilian garden. The best evidence of this concern are those ancient coastal enclaves are growing aimlessly around the massive extraction of oil and are already victims of pollution, degradation of rivers, lack of social facilities and urban violence and drug trafficking.
Sitting on a folding chair painted blue on the sand, Americo, an old fisherman of 66 years of Ilhabela, a natural paradise 200 kilometers from São Paulo, recalls with nostalgia and a cigarette between his lips before the times oil boom. Every morning when he cast a net into the sea and picked up full of shrimp. A couple of miles from this island, right in front of us, there's massive shipping terminal Almirante Barroso, Petrobras, which gets half of the oil and gas consumed in Brazil from deposits in the Santos Basin . The constant parade of oil. On those port facilities on the mountains, forty huge circular tanks become the town of San Sebastian in the terminal and pumping more crude oil storage of America America. Américo, our fisherman, who says that oil spills are continuous and fishing has declined by 90% and that young people no longer want to fish, but work in Petrobras, is not provoked, only asks that the port does not grow further to tow the oil business. "It would be the end of Ilhabela and our way of life." Beside him, Harry Finger, 52, quarrelsome municipal secretary of environment, working towards the same goal: "It is time that we become aware in the country of what is at stake, otherwise you can go paradise to hell. "
The future of Brazil sleeping face these same costs. Oil is still a distant promise, but behind that hope across the country has launched. Brazil is abandoning the economic crisis in the leading group, contains an immense natural wealth, has built a stable democracy and, above all, accumulated the largest reserves of optimism on the planet. So if you ask a Brazilian for the future, the answer is always the same: "All Ben, all bon."
