Though there are a variety big issues in Brazil right now, mostly involving the Sarney corruption scandal and the Senate’s Internet censorship during the upcoming elections, there is another issue, one of President Lula’s pet projects and evidently one of the federal government’s top priorities: oil.
Petrobras, the state-run petroleum company, has long been a leader in the oil industry and one of Latin America’s largest and highest-grossing companies. It has offices all over the world and not only explorations in Brazil, but also in the Gulf of Mexico. This week, statistics released by consulting company Economatica indicate that during the third trimester of 2009, Petrobras showed the second highest profits of all companies in the Western Hemisphere. It is posed to be the leader in explorations of the Tupi oil field, with recently discovered reserves that could make Brazil one of the world’s oil giants.
Now, President Lula wants to reform how Petrobras is run, which in the past has allowed 60% of its shares on the market with considerable foreign investment. He’s seeking much tighter federal control over the oil reserves and the company, which would reduce shareholders’ stakes and also state-based oil revenues (it’s no surprise that Rio de Janeiro’s governor is opposed to the reform). He has promised to funnel the profits into social welfare projects so that the fruits of Petrobras’ labor will go to the people, and not the government (or the politicians’ pockets). Incidentally, Lula’s also promoting his own Chief of Staff, Dilma Rousseff, for president in 2010; she seems poised to push the reforms, and it’s no coincidence that she spent much of her political career as MInister of Mines and Energy (for the federal and Rio Grande do Sul governments).
So I’d like to take a look at a couple of strategies the Brazilian government and Petrobras have been dealing with the oil issue, very much on the offensive in the international media and blogosphere.
Most notably, President Lula launched a blog this week, inspired by Obama’s internet success. But as it turned out, the blog wasn’t so much a blog as a series of articles to promote Lula’s projects (there are no comment sections; this afternoon they were recently added), and Lula doesn’t actually write it (it’s run by a team of “bloggers”). The first week, the blog was full of articles about the new oil legislation and the pre-sal, the layer Petrobras will have to get through to get to the oil, with titles such as “Pre-sal is the future of the country” and “Pre-sal: patrimony of the Union, wealth of the people, and future of Brazil.” An excerpt:
“With the pre-salt, Brazil has a promising future ahead of it, but it will only come with the best use of resources that are created by Petrobras’ recently discovered large petroleum and natural gas reserves. Ministers Dilma Roussef (Chief of Staff) and Edison Lobão (Mines and Energy) affirmed in their speeches during the announcement of the new pre-salt regulations, that it is necessary to guarantee that the profit created is used as a priority to combat poverty, education, scinece, technology, and environmental sustainability.”
In this month’s Foreign Policy Magazine, which is a series of articles about oil entitled “Oil: The Long Goodbye,” there are a few mentions of Brazil’s oil potential and of Petrobras’ role in the industry, but not much beyond mentions. However, the Brazilian government took out a twelve page advertising section with “articles” about Petrobras, the oil question, the Rio 2016 Olympic bid, and other promotions of Brazilian industry, including the ports and construction. It also features interviews with Rio’s mayor and governor, as well as business leaders.
This, in contrast to the edition’s op-ed piece about oil, written by Moises Naim, the editor in chief of the magazine, entitled “The Devil’s Excrement.” A Venezuelan who attests to the curse oil becomes for oil-rich countires, he provides a warning about the dangers of oil wealth:
“Perhaps even more significantly, the oil curse also nurtures bad politics, and herein lies its autoimmune nature. Because governments of such countries do not need to tax the population to amass giant fiscal revenues, their leaders can afford to be unresponsive and unaccountable to taxpayers, who in turn have tenuous and often parasitic links with the state. With their ability to allocate immense financial resources pretty much at will, such governments inevitably grow corrupt.
…Once in power, oil-rich governments are deadly hard to dislodge. They stick around by spending their vast public resources to buy out or repress their political opponents. Statistically, it is far less probable that an authoritarian oil country will transition to democracy than that a resource-poor autocracy will. Oil-rich governments spend two to 10 times more on their militaries than countries without oil and are more prone to go to war. Most oil-exporting countries that do not have strong democratic institutions before they start exporting crude inevitably create an inhospitable environment for democracy.”
While Brazil has relatively strong institutions and democracy, as well as being one of the highest taxing governments in the region, this may not be a problem.
But unfortunately, the Brazilian government does have problems with corruption, and that includes Petrobras. Accused of tax evasion and funneling charity money to political croonies, Petrobras has started a corporate blog entitled “Facts and Figures” to lash out at Brazilian journalists accusing the company of wrong-doing. SImilar to Lula’s blog, it’s more of a one-way dialogue, and has been accused by some as a way of intimidating the media. MSNBC reported:
“[CEO] Gabrielli says he personally signs off on many of the company’s daily postings on the blog, which is published only in Portuguese. The idea is to rebut what he calls “false information” in the Brazilian press about the company. But the site, which has had more than 1.5 million visitors, is raising questions about whether one of the region’s most respected state-run companies is harming its reputation by being so combative. “We’re going to defend ourselves,” Gabrielli told a reporter from leading newspaper Folha de So Paulo in late June, in a Q&A posted on the blog. “Attacking is also part of defending oneself.”
Though Petrobras has had a relatively good track record, the reforms and the subsequent exploration projects could be a real test of Brazil’s still fragile democracy. The Economist summed it up best in today’s article about the new policy:
“…Brazil is better placed to deal with them than many other countries. Still, as Lula pointed out, what looks like a winning lottery ticket can all too easily become a curse. Anyone who has been following the recent corruption scandals in Brazil’s Congress will know that such a disaster is well within the powers of the country’s lawmakers.”
3 Comments
I very much doubt that Brazil will come to regret its oil discoveries, even if opportunities for corruption proliferate as oil revenues skyrocket. However, it very well might regret limiting foreign participation in the extraction of deep-water oil.
The recent collapse in oil prices, and the massive research in alternative energies, should be warnings to oil-producing states that the bonanza they have enjoyed will not last forever. In that light, it seems silly for Brazil to sacrifice the efficiency foreign companies bring to oil extraction.
Browsing Amherst blogs, came across this. Interesting comment. Basically every significant oil producer gets far higher royalties than the Brazilian government imposes. Many have fully-nationalized oil companies, which increases the multiplier effect of any money spent on oil exploration. Others that allow foreign oil companies to do some work in their country set terms far less generous than Brazil.
Still, Petrobras–its voting shares still controlled by the government, incidentally–is the world-leader in deep-sea oil exploration, precisely where the pre-sal layer is. It doesn’t need technical assisstance from other companies, and building up the physical infrastructure for oil exploration will be a boon for the country’s industrial plant, which has been getting hammered, if you’ve been reading the news. The only conceivable reason it could need foreign companies’ assistance is for capital investments, since given the way the US is issuing debt there’s a world liquidity crunch. But that’ll resolve itself soon enough, and in the meantime Brazil can probably raise the money domestically, or from China.
The comment about “efficiency” is cute, since if Petrobras were effectively re-nationalized, the government could cut salaries massively. That’d be a huge efficiency, although cutting executive salaries is doubtless not the kind of efficiency you had in mind. What’s “Silly” is Lula’s proposal, which is getting criticized on the Brazilian left:
http://www.correiocidadania.com.br/content/view/3742/124/
Pré-sal: O falso nacionalismo do governo Lula
Wladmir Coelho
Mestre em Direito e Historiador
Desde o anúncio oficial da descoberta do campo de Tupi em 2007 o governo promete ao povo brasileiro transformar o nosso país na terra prometida utilizando para este fim o poder econômico concedido pelo petróleo. Para concretizar este novo tempo de fartura o presidente Lula encarregou os ministérios chefiados por Dilma Rousseff e Lobão de elaborarem a nova legislação para tornar realidade suas palavras proféticas. Deste modo os obedientes ministros reuniram os sábios disponíveis e trancaram-se nos templos de Brasília durante dois anos decifrando os diferentes sinais considerados, por eles, divinos e emitindo outros para testar a reação das ruas.
Nestes dois anos de clausura os ministros apresentaram diferentes versões dos mesmos sinais primeiro acusando a Petrobrás de inimiga da pátria, uma espécie de quinta coluna, cujo controle estaria em mãos estrangeiras tornando necessária a criação de uma nova empresa para controlar o petróleo do pré-sal tirando de cena a empresa traidora. Coube ao presidente da ANP, Haroldo Lima, divulgar esta profecia e para tentar concretizá-la decretou, através dos jornais, o surgimento de um novo tempo para o setor petrolífero no qual não havia espaço para os oligopólios internacionais reduzidos a peças de museu. Este ensaio de mandamento chegou a ser repetido por estudantes (chefiados por Haroldo Lima?) e certa liderança estudantil afirmou ter a Petrobrás cumprido o seu papel histórico, agora era o momento de aposentar o modelo, concluía.
Apesar do esforço do governo, ANP e seus liderados a população não aceitou a satanização da Petrobrás criando um novo problema para o governo, pois era preciso criar os mandamentos do pré-sal afinal os sinais eram claros e diariamente os sábios do Planalto traduziam, para o português, novas exigências “divinas”. A estratégia de satanizar a empresa nacional de petróleo também gerou questionamentos e muitos passaram a suspeitar da qualidade ou mesmo da origem dos sinais recebidos nos gabinetes de Brasília.
A solução encontrada foi substituir o discurso anti-Petrobrás por sua defesa e para este fim recebem uma ajudazinha do PSDB/DEM desejosos por criar mais uma CPI de holofotes fato oficialmente condenado pelo governo, mas aprovado com votos de sua base. Concluída com sucesso a estratégia os governistas apresentaram um novo rosto e diziam-se agora defensores dos interesses nacionais e assim resgataram a frase “o petróleo é nosso”, movimentaram os liderados da ANP (estes, certamente em nome da revolução, rapidamente mudaram o discurso do fim da história.) e inundaram os jornais com frases de efeito. Isso para o público, pois internamente continuavam elaborando um plano de acordo com os sinais – agora sabemos – nada divinos.
Apesar do barulho na imprensa o trabalho dos sábios continuava em segredo e, regularmente, membros do governo viajavam aos Estados Unidos para discutir o tema enquanto no Brasil divulgavam-se notas desconexas e contraditórias para confundir a população quanto as verdadeiras intenções palacianas. Quando finalmente a proposta para o pré-sal foi levada ao presidente Lula constatou-se, diante das concessões aos oligopólios internacionais do petróleo, a necessidade de cercar o seu anuncio de forte publicidade oficial e recorrer à tradicional legitimação do PSDB/DEM através do desgastado discurso fundamentalista liberal repetidos por estes partidos.
O documento governamental precisa mesmo de muito apoio publicitário, pois nasceu contraditório afirmando que o atual marco regulatório foi “fundamentado nas premissas que levaram à promulgação da Emenda Constitucional nº 9, de 1995.” E continua: “O referido marco legal foi concebido a contemplar as condições vigentes naquela época.” Observe que o governo condena, inicialmente, a citada emenda entendo sua motivação como ultrapassada, mas não encaminha uma proposta de reforma constitucional e sim altera pontos da legislação (lei 9478/97) criada a partir da reforma de 1995.
Descontado todo esforço mediático e após dois anos de mistério o governo, na realidade, encaminhou ao Congresso um projeto de reforma da lei 9478/97 adaptando esta a nova fase do liberalismo internacional pós-crise no qual o Estado é utilizado não somente para abrir o mercado através das privatizações, mas financia, com dinheiro do povo, diretamente os grupos econômicos. Neste modelo o papel da Petrobrás fica evidente quando recebe a condição de operadora, ou seja, controlando somente 30% da participação nos blocos será “responsável pela condução e execução, direta ou indireta, de todas as atividades de exploração, avaliação, desenvolvimento, produção e desativação das instalações de exploração e produção”. As outras empresas – e quantas apresentam condições de atuar no pré-sal? – formam um consórcio ganham o leilão pegam o petróleo e vendem como bem entender sem risco, pois o gasto maior ficou com a Petrobrás.
Outro ponto apresentado como aumento da presença do Estado no setor petrolífero encontra-se na criação de um novo modelo de contrato erroneamente chamado de partilha da produção. Nesta modalidade vencerá o leilão a empresa que destinar a maior quantidade de petróleo à União, entretanto esta “maior quantidade” não tem um piso determinado e fica ao critério da empresa transferindo para a iniciativa privada – e neste caso aos oligopólios internacionais – a quantidade de óleo em poder do Estado brasileiro e, por conseqüência, o desenvolvimento das políticas sociais associadas à utilização do poder econômico resultante de sua comercialização.
O governo do México – que busca desesperadamente uma forma diminuir a importância da oficial PEMEX – anunciou a disposição de adotar o agora modelo brasileiro o presidente da Galp elogiou o marco regulatório do pré-sal afirmando que este oferecerá a independência energética de Portugal, José Sérgio Gabrielle afirma no Valor Econômico que os 30% da Petrobrás podem não remunerar a empresa de forma suficiente e ainda consideram estatizante a proposta do governo para o petróleo do pré-sal.
http://politicaeconomicadopetroleo.blogspot.com/