Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Petrobras Scores!

Sometimes real events make much more eloquent arguments than people do: while Mexico's energy debate trudges along (today's expert witness: the head of the electricians' union), unlikely to provide more than a cosmetic opening in the oil industry, Petrobras announced the discovery of a new oil field at almost 9,000 meters of depth in the Gulf of Mexico. Also involved in the operation were Shell, Marathon, and ENI.

Petrobras, the nationalized oil company of Brazil, is a model for what Pemex should become: a flexible, efficient, technologically advanced operation that can compete against and work with the world's oil giants while supplying the Brazilian state with a steady stream of income. But that obvious goal is forgotten amid the cacophony of a populism and nationalism better suited to another century.

(Thanks to the fantastic morning show of Pedro Ferríz de Con for pointing all this out today.)

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