Brazil Oil Finds May End Reliance on Middle East

[walnutpie]

Source: Bloomberg

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's discoveries of what may be two of the world's three biggest oil finds in the past 30 years could help end the Western Hemisphere's reliance on Middle East crude, Strategic Forecasting Inc. said.

Saudi Arabia's influence as the biggest oil exporter would wane if the fields are as big as advertised, and China and India would become dominant buyers of Persian Gulf oil, said Peter Zeihan, vice president of analysis at Strategic Forecasting in Austin, Texas. Zeihan's firm, which consults for companies and governments around the world, was described in a 2001 Barron's article as ``the shadow CIA.''

Brazil may be pumping ``several million'' barrels of crude daily by 2020, vaulting the nation into the ranks of the world's seven biggest producers, Zeihan said in a telephone interview. The U.S. Navy's presence in the Persian Gulf and adjacent waters would be reduced, leaving the region exposed to more conflict, he said.

``We could see that world becoming a very violent one,'' said Zeihan, former chief of Middle East and East Asia analysis for Strategic Forecasting. ``If the United States isn't getting any crude from the Gulf, what benefit does it have in policing the Gulf anymore? All of the geopolitical flux that wracks that region regularly suddenly isn't our problem.''



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aBUoYKhu7PWk

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Delete - Dupe, sorry

[Baby Snooks]

1. We're only there for the oil?

"``If the United States isn't getting any crude from the Gulf, what benefit does it have in policing the Gulf anymore? All of the geopolitical flux that wracks that region regularly suddenly isn't our problem.''"

I thought we were there defending freedom and democracy?

:sarcasm:

[momster]

2. Every time they've found something in Brazil

Rubber, gold, wood, you name it, has been an ecological disaster for the rain forest and the indigenous people. Oil won't be any different.

[Lorien]

4. Sadly, this is true. If the powers of the world had any forethought at all

the rest of us would have an agreement to buy Brazil's oil ONLY if they put an end to the destruction of our planet's "lungs". Most Brazilians that I know (and there are many here in Florida) know exactly how important their rain forests are to the welfare of the world. But as usual, their leadership only sees a "resource" to be exploited. The planet can't take much more of our brand of "leadership" or theirs!

[littlecryinggirl]

3. This would be nice

if it pans out.

[1monster]

5. So, when does the administration release "intelligence" about rogue nation Brazil's illicit nuclear

weapons development and when do we invade to protect ourselves from that threatening "mushroom cloud"?

[YankeyMCC]

6. Oh joy

let's just keep on consuming and polluting! :sarcasm:

[Summer93]

7. No new way

Oh good we don't have to change the way we do things. We can continue to use air pollution to kill ourselves. We don't have to think or imagine what we do to make our world better.

If each household provided their own electricity then there would not be a need for telephone poles.

[Javaman]

8. wasn't this "find" just reported a being actually 98% less than first thought????

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601072&refer=energy&sid=ao7d7haWD5A8

[Delphinus]

9. I just went looking for a thread that talked about this ...

and couldn't find it. But before anyone gets overly excited, I don't think this has enough oil to satisfy more than three years of current worldwide demand. I think it has more than Anwar, but not by much.

[JohnyCanuck]

10. And it is in very deep water and very deep underground

as well as lying under salt layers in the rock which makes it difficult and therefore expensive to produce compared to oil from more traditional sources. I saw the figure of 33 billion barrels being bandied about for this new find. World oil consumption today is somewhere around 30 billion barrels per year (see http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/gene/peakoil/node2.html ). Which would mean this find would be roughly good for just over one year's worth of oil.

According to this other Bloomber article, there is some skepticism being expressed about the size of the new find:

Brazil Field Smaller Than Claimed, Credit Suisse Says (Update3)

By Joe Carroll

April 16 (Bloomberg) -- Brazil's Carioca prospect may have 98 percent less crude than a figure cited by the country's oil agency, Credit Suisse Group said, challenging claims that the field is the biggest-ever discovery outside the Middle East.

Haroldo Lima, director of Brazil's National Oil Agency, sent shares of Petroleo Brasileiro SA and other Carioca stakeholders higher when he said April 14 that the offshore field may hold 33 billion barrels of oil. That figure is ``way off the mark,'' Mark Flannery, a Credit Suisse analyst in New York, said today on a conference call with clients.

An estimate of about 600 million barrels ``sounds reasonable,'' Flannery said, adding that the firm isn't yet giving an official assessment of its own. The estimate cited by Lima was probably intended for the entire subsea geological formation known as Sugar Loaf, which encompasses multiple fields, Credit Suisse said.

``A lot of exploration and delineation is going to need to take place,'' Emerson Leite, a Credit Suisse analyst who's been following Petroleo Brasileiro for a decade, said on the conference call. ``We are very early in the process here.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBzZ.NHGe6e4&refer=worldwide

I just put together a post in GD which explains why we will need to find and develop lots more oil than what we might think would be necessary due to world economies' need for increasing quantities of oil to fuel the perpetual economic growth machine. Even small amounts of growth in consumption can lead to very large increases in consumption in much shorter time frames than most people would think likely. As physics professor Albert Bartlett put it in his paper Forgotten Fundamentals of the Energy Crisis, "Exponential growth is characterized by doubling, and a few doublings can lead quickly to enormous numbers."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3201026

[LeftCoast]

11. I wonder how hot the earth will get when we've burned every ounce of oil and coal?

Because that's what's going to happen.