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This may not be the best time to be bigger than big. The $64 billion tie-up of Royal Dutch Shell Plc with BG Group Plc and the steady growth of Exxon Mobil Corp. are creating a new league of two: the ultramajors. Executives at smaller companies are even starting to joke that Chevron Corp., Total SA,... Continue Reading →
Brazil’s real tumbled after inflation accelerated and as Goldman Sachs said the currency is poised to drop another 10 percent this year while the government struggles to contain consumer-price increases and shore up its budget. Sentiment in Brazil remains distinctively negative and the dominant view is that things will get worse before they get better, Alberto... Continue Reading →
Brazilian police are investigating potential bribes of $3 million from Latin America's largest engineering conglomerate Odebrecht to Peruvian President Ollanta Humala, court documents showed. Documents seized from Marcelo Odebrecht, the former CEO of the family-run company, cite "Program OH," which police said in the documents they interpreted as referring to the initials of the Peruvian... Continue Reading →
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Brazil’s state-owned energy company, is scheduled to receive the first cargo of shale gas to be shipped from the U.S., according to a person familiar with the deal. The shipment of liquefied natural gas was agreed to on Monday, said the person who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public.... Continue Reading →
Feb 23, 2016 Reuters Brazil's state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA plans to shut down onshore drilling rigs in at least six states because of the low price of oil, newspaper Valor Economico reported on Tuesday, citing a source with knowledge of the operations. The paper said Petrobras, as the company is known, would suspend rig operations... Continue Reading →
Statoil ASA plans to double oil production from deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico in three years after slashing one in five workers at its U.S. business and installing new managers. The Norwegian oil giant is bucking the trend among other major explorers who are scaling back or outright canceling deepwater Gulf of Mexico... Continue Reading →
Brazilian police said on Monday they obtained an arrest warrant for the architect of President Dilma Rousseff's electoral campaigns, complicating her fight to survive an investigation into her 2014 re-election and stave off impeachment by Congress. The investigation of campaigner João Santana, known as "the maker of presidents" in Latin America, is part of Brazil's... Continue Reading →
Feb 22, 2016 Reuters Brazilian police said on Monday they were looking into possible bribes paid in contracts signed by state-run oil company Petrobras and shipbuilder Sete Brasil with Singapore's Keppel Fels. Federal police carried out a fresh wave of searches and arrests on Monday in the ongoing "Operations Car Wash" corruption investigation that started... Continue Reading →
The European Union suspended the deadline for its review of Halliburton Co.’s acquisition of Baker Hughes Inc.as regulators said the companies failed to supply “important information.” The EU regulator “stopped the clock in its in-depth investigation into the Baker Hughes -- Halliburton deal,” EU spokesman Ricardo Cardoso said in an e-mailed response to questions. The... Continue Reading →
The global oil glut will persist into 2017, limiting any chance of a price rebound in the short term as the surplus takes even longer to clear than previously estimated, according to the International Energy Agency. While U.S. shale oil production will retreat this year and next as the price slump hits drilling, its subsequent... Continue Reading →
Brazil Energy Insight 