Brazil’s real fluctuated amid speculation President Dilma Rousseff will fail to gather congressional support to approve the country’s fiscal target, which is key to avoiding a forced government spending shutdown. The government is trying to change this year’s fiscal target, allowing it to end the year with a primary deficit of 119 billion reais ($31 billion).... Continue Reading →
Fitch Warns Emerging Markets of Brazil-Like Mess on Debt
As if political turmoil, commodity-price meltdown and growth hiccups aren’t enough, emerging markets face a threat to their creditworthiness from an entirely different area -- the burgeoning debt of households and companies. Private-sector borrowing as a proportion of gross domestic product will reach 77 percent by the end of this year in seven large developing... Continue Reading →
Shell expects Brazil offshore unitization accord by early 2016
Royal Dutch Shell Plc expects to sign an agreement to join up, or unitize, its Parque das Conchas offshore fields Brazil's Campos Basin with an area owned by Brazil's government by early next year, the local-unit president said on Wednesday. Part of the oil and gas resources in Parque das Conchas extend into an un-leased... Continue Reading →
Brazil’s Petrobras says 32 firms banned from working with it
Reuters Wed Dec 2, 2015 Dec 2 Thirty-two companies are currently banned from doing work for Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA because of an ongoing corruption investigation, the oil firm's head of governance João Elek said on Wednesday. He said Queiroz Galvão Óleo e Gás is now allowed to work with Petrobras, as... Continue Reading →
Petrobras – Clarification of News Item: Escrow Accounts
12/01/2015 Rio de Janeiro, December 1, 2015 – Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras hereby responds to CVM Official Letter 500/2015/CVM/SEP/GEA-1 requesting clarifications, as transcribed below: CVM Official Letter 508/2015/CVM/SEP/GEA-1 “We refer to the news item published on November 29, 2015 in the Poder (Power) section of the newspaper Folha de São Paulo, entitled Petrobras deu... Continue Reading →
Petrobras – Clarification of News Item: Irregularities in the contracting of the Vitória 10000 drill ship
11/30/2015 Rio de Janeiro, November 30, 2015 – Petróleo Brasileiro S.A. – Petrobras hereby responds to CVM Official Letter 500/2015/CVM/SEP/GEA-1 requesting clarifications, as transcribed below: CVM Official Letter 500/2015/CVM/SEP/GEA-1 “We refer to the news item published today in the Nacional (National) section of the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, entitled Auditoria embasa prisão de... Continue Reading →
Petrobras, Odebrecht Venture Avoids Parents’ Pain as Stock Soars
Braskem SA, Latin America’s biggest petrochemical maker, is an unlikely contender to be the world’s top-performing emerging-market stock. Not only is it based in Brazil, which is suffering through its longest recession since the 1930s, but its two controlling shareholders -- Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Odebrecht SA -- are mired in scandal. Odebrecht’s former chief executive... Continue Reading →
Petrobras Dream Team Splits on Approach to Turnaround
This was the year Petroleo Brasileiro SA investors got what they had sought for decades: a chief executive with a mission to streamline and an independent chairman. Now one of them is gone. Clashes over everything from Formula 1 sponsorship to the spinoff of a fuel unit created a rift between CEO Aldemir Bendine, 51,... Continue Reading →
Withering Demand Leaves Brazil GDP in ‘Obituary’ Condition
Latin America’s largest economy shrank more than analysts forecast, as rising unemployment and higher inflation sapped domestic demand, pulling the nation deeper into recession. Gross domestic product in Brazil contracted 1.7 percent in the three months ended in September, after a revised 2.1 percent drop the previous quarter, the national statistics institute said in Rio... Continue Reading →
Transocean’s Norway Deal Marks New Rig-Rate Low in Oil Slump
Transocean Ltd., the biggest offshore-rig operator, won a contract to drill four wells off Norway for Det Norske Oljeselskap ASA at a day rate of about $180,000, the lowest recorded tariff in the Nordic country since oil began to tumble last year. “It’s a clear sign of desperation and how bad it’s become,” Janne Kvernland, an... Continue Reading →
Brazil Energy Insight 