longoil

Will Brazil Really Nationalize Oil?

I hope da Silva learns from the mistakes of his neighbor Chavez.
It is easy to nationalize conventional oil fields where old technology will suffice for extraction. Chavez essentially doomed his country to the fate of a banana republic in the near future. His conventional oil fields are depleting much faster than he anticipated thanks to the in-house expertise (and inefficiency) of PDVSA. His nationalization in 2006 drove out the companies (Exxon & Conoco) with expertise needed for heavy oil extraction in the Orinco oil fields. Brazil needs external expertise to get any oil from its Tupi fields located under 2km of water, 2km or rock and 2km of unstable salt.

I hope Brazil learns from Chavez's socialist experiment. The problem with these socialists is they want all the money, but nobody wants to take any of the risk or do any of the work. This why the old political systems of USSR, Vietnam, and China all failed. The ancient Greeks saw the flaws of socialism over 2000 years ago. Aristotle noted a property with sole owner was more fruitful and well taken of than a property with common ownership (as advocated by Plato) among numerous citizens .