Brazil Affordable Housing Articles

Brazil announces new oil reserves

2007/11/09
By Gary Duffy
BBC News, Sao Paulo

The Brazilian government says huge new oil reserves discovered off its coast could turn the country into one of the biggest oil producers in the world […]
A senior minister said Brazilian oil production had the potential to match that of Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. […] Petrobras says the find has the potential to move Brazil into a position where it is one of the top ten oil reserves in the world […]
The senior minister in charge of the cabinet, Dilma Rousseff, said if the deposits turned out to be as significant as first thought, it would place Brazil in the same league as Venezuela and countries in the Arab world.
With a reserve like this, the country could be transformed into an exporter of petroleum, she said.
"This has changed our reality," she said […]

With the Tupi field potentially equal to 40% of all oil ever discovered here, it seems by any standards a significant moment for Brazil.
"If the best-case scenario happens, this discovery would make Petrobras' reserves overcome those of Shell and Chevron," said Felipe Cunha, an analyst with brokers Brascan […]

Hot Prospect for Oil’s Big League

January 11, 2008
By Alexei Barrionuevo
New York Times
RIO DE JANEIRO — While some of the world’s largest oil producers, including Mexico and Iran, are struggling to remain exporters, Brazil is moving in the opposite direction. A huge underwater oil field discovered late last year has the potential to transform South America’s largest country into a sizable exporter and win it a seat at the table of the world’s oil cartel.
The new oil, along with refining projects under way by Petrobras, the national oil company, could eventually make Brazil a larger exporter of gasoline as well, adding to supplies in the United States and other countries where it is all but impossible to build new refineries […]
Just a decade ago the notion that Brazil would become self-sufficient in energy, let alone emerge as an exporter, seemed far-fetched — even in the sunny beach city of Rio, where Petrobras is based. Petrobras was formed five decades ago largely as a trading company to import oil to support Brazil’s growing economy, which is now the world’s 10th largest and supports more than 185 million people.
Yet two years ago, even without Tupi, Brazil reached its long-sought goal of energy self-sufficiency, in part by expanding its domestic fossil fuel resources but also by developing an extensive ethanol industry using sugar cane. Today Petrobras has a standing goal of raising its Brazilian crude oil output by at least 100,000 barrels a day every year […]
But Brazil, with an economy growing at a healthy clip, sells fuels to its citizens essentially at market rates. And the huge three-decade-old effort to turn sugar cane into ethanol has made Brazil the largest consumer of plant-based biofuels in the world. The government requires that gasoline contain a minimum of 25 percent ethanol and that every service station have at least one pump that delivers pure ethanol.
The growing ethanol program is putting Brazil in a better position to take advantage of Tupi’s oil riches, Mr. Gabrielli said. Petrobras expects ethanol use to rise as more flex-fuel vehicles hit the roads. “We are going to have more gasoline for export than we have today,” he said, “because part of the gasoline is going to be displaced by ethanol.” […]

Bucking the trend

August 22, 2007
Conor Foley,
Guardian Newspaper

Brazil is unfazed by the global financial crisis caused by sub-prime mortgages. In a quiet way, it has revolutionised its citizens home-owning prospects.
The announcement that a mortgage is being introduced with a term of 20 years and an interest rate of less than 10 per cent may not seem either particularly good or startling news, yet it was the front-page lead in my Brazilian newspaper yesterday.
Mortgages are still very rare in Brazil and the idea that people would be given 20 years to pay off a loan was until recently quite fanciful. The timing of the announcement, in the middle of a global financial crisis linked to the collapse of the US sub-prime market, also underlines a profound social and economic transformation taking place in Latin America at the moment.
[…] a boom in the price of commodities helped Brazil to a healthy trade surplus and it also built up foreign reserves of over US$100bn, which has largely insulated it from recent global financial tremors. Inflation was 3 per cent last year, well below the official target, and this has allowed for a steady reduction of interest rates at a time when they have been rising in much of the rest of the world […]
It is this final factor that has led to the revival of a credit market which […] could have significant political as well as social and economic consequences. […] The rising economic power of the poor is now also having a visible knock-on effect in many areas and cheaper credit will not just stimulate consumer markets but also give ordinary families the chance to buy their own homes or lands. It is estimated that there is currently a shortage of eight million homes in Brazil, with almost all the demand coming from low-income families. Yesterday's announcement may help to ensure that some of these houses get built.

Brazil moves to top of emerging market index
February 29, 2008
Brazilian-American Chamber of Commerce, Inc.
Brazil has become the world’s biggest emerging market, displacing China, according to a key market index.
The South American country’s climb to the top of the index prepared by Morgan Stanley Capital International will have a big impact on fund managers around the world. Many investors benchmark their portfolios against the MSCI GEM index of global emerging markets.
That could lead to a flood of new money into Brazilian shares, according to Geoffrey Dennis, Latin American equity strategist at Citigroup in New York […]
Brazil overtook China as the biggest market on the MSCI index on February 20, rising to a weighting of 14.95 per cent, compared with 14.15 per cent for China […] Since emerging market equities peaked at the end of October, Chinese share prices have fallen by 28 per cent. Over the same period, Brazilian shares have gained 4.5 per cent […]

Brazil's Real Rises for 7th Day, Matching Rally in April 2006
February 26, 2008
By Adriana Brasileiro
Bloomberg.com
The Brazilian real rose for a seventh straight day, matching a rally in April 2006, on speculation foreign direct investment will extend gains in January that were reported yesterday.
``We think foreign direct investment will rise, as Brazil's economic growth is accelerating and world market mood is improving, which will increase appetite for risk,'' said Mario Cebrian, head of foreign exchange trading in Sao Paulo at Banco Standard de Investimento.
The real jumped 0.8 percent to 1.6916 per dollar at 10:31 a.m. New York time, from 1.7050 yesterday. It touched 1.6902, the strongest since May 1999. The real has appreciated 22.5 percent over the past 12 months, making it the best performer among the other major currencies.
Foreign direct investment increased to $4.8 billion in January, the third highest figure for Brazil since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in 2003, the central bank said yesterday. That compares with $2.4 billion in January 2007.
Speculation that Brazil will attain an investment-grade rating this year is also boosting the allure of the currency, said Cebrian, adding that an upgrade may come in the first half of this year.

Brazil Stocks Gain on Credit Outlook, Earnings; Bolsa Rises
February 22, 2008
By Alexander Ragir and William Freebairn
Bloomberg.com
Brazil's main stock index posted its third weekly gain in four weeks on investor optimism that the South American country's strengthening credit outlook will boost profits […]Cyrela Brazil Realty SA Empreendimentos e Participacoes surged after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said Brazilian homebuilders are ``attractive.'' […]
Brazil's central bank this week said Latin America's largest country became a net creditor for the first time in January. This puts Brazil closer to investment grade status, said Standard & Poor's analyst Lisa Schineller in a Bloomberg TV interview today […]
Cyrela climbed 4.5 percent to 26.50 reais. Goldman Sachs analyst Jason B. Mollin rated Cyrela a ``buy,'' citing ``pent-up demand for homes'' in Brazil […]