The Brazilian currency is heading for the second worse monthly performance since 1999. At 3:13 pm, this 31st of August, the real was down 1.38% or approximately 6% for the month of August, to R$3.6347 for one US dollar. For the year, the Real is the worst performing currency against the USD in a list... Continue Reading →
Brazil Cuts 2016 Budget Forecast to Deficit
Brazil’s government cut its estimate for budget savings for the second time this year, forecasting a deficit for 2016 as Congress steps up its opposition to tax increases and spending reductions. The government foresees a deficit next year excluding interest payments of 30.5 billion reais ($8.4 billion), or about 0.5 percent of gross domestic product,... Continue Reading →
Oil Prices Rally Amid Lower U.S. Output Estimates, OPEC Article
Oil prices turned higher Monday on speculation that oil-producing nations might be willing to agree to output cuts to shrink the global glut of crude oil. An oversupply of crude oil has sent oil prices plunging to six-year lows in recent months, and many market watchers don’t expect prices to recover until late 2016 or... Continue Reading →
OPEC Ready to Talk to Other Producers to Get ‘Fair’ Price
OPEC, the producer of 40 percent of the world’s oil, renewed its readiness to talk to other crude exporters to achieve “fair and reasonable prices,” according to the group’s monthly magazine. Oil jumped to the highest in a month on the report. “There is no quick fix, but if there is a willingness to face... Continue Reading →
Pemex Investors Face Crude Reality With Credit Downgrade Threat
More than a year after Mexico rewrote laws to give oil giant Petroleos Mexicanos the financial independence needed to compete with global peers like Exxon Mobil Corp., things aren’t looking good for the state-owned driller. With crude near a six-year low, output dropping and Moody’s Investors Service warning that it’s considering a cut to Pemex’scredit... Continue Reading →
Junk-Rating Dread Sends Brazil Stocks to Biggest Slump in World
Brazilian stocks and the real led global losses on speculation that Latin America’s largest economy is struggling to put its finances in order and avoid a credit-rating downgrade to junk. The Ibovespa tumbled 2.9 percent to 45,784.03 at 10:30 a.m. in Sao Paulo, bringing its monthly slide 9.9 percent. The real retreated 2.6 percent to... Continue Reading →
Brazil’s crafty Senate boss helps keep Rousseff afloat
Renan Calheiros took an Air Force jet to get hair implants and was accused of letting a lobbyist pay child support to a journalist he had an affair and a child with. Either episode would have derailed many politicians but corruption allegations have not kept Calheiros, the 59-year-old president of Brazil's Senate, from making himself... Continue Reading →
Economists cut Brazil’s 2015 GDP view for 7th consecutive week
Mon Aug 31, 2015 7:44am EDT Reuters Economists cut Brazil's 2015 GDP view for 7th consecutive week BRASILIA, Aug 31 Economists forecast bigger economic contractions in Brazil in 2015 and 2016, estimating a decline of 2.26 percent in 2015 and 0.40 percent next year, according to a weekly central bank survey of about 100 financial... Continue Reading →
Brazil’s Rousseff drops plan to restore unpopular tax
President Dilma Rousseff has dropped the idea of reinstating a tax on financial transactions to bridge a gaping fiscal deficit in Brazil after it ran into a barrage of criticism even from within her coalition, Brazilian media reported on Sunday. The Folha de S.Paulo and Estado de S.Paulo newspapers, citing presidential aides, said Rousseff abandoned... Continue Reading →
Brazilian weekly says Lula lobbied for Odebrecht in Cuba
A Brazilian news magazine has accused former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of acting as lobbyist in Cuba for Brazil's largest engineering firm Odebrecht, which built the container terminal at the Cuban port of Mariel. In this week's edition headlined "Our man in Havana," Epoca magazine cited Brazilian diplomatic cables about visits to Cuba... Continue Reading →
Brazil Energy Insight 