Category Archives: Brazil
Officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America..
“Katie bar the door” :: Southcom Keeps Watch on Ebola Situation
DoD News, Defense Media Activity
WASHINGTON, Oct. 8, 2014 – The potential spread of Ebola into Central and Southern America is a real possibility, the commander of U.S. Southern Command told an audience at the National Defense University here yesterday.
“By the end of the year, there’s supposed to be 1.4 million people infected with Ebola and 62 percent of them dying, according to the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention],” Marine Corps Gen. John F. Kelly said. “That’s horrific. And there is no way we can keep Ebola [contained] in West Africa.”
If it comes to the Western Hemisphere, many countries have little ability to deal with an outbreak of the disease, the general said.
“So, much like West Africa, it will rage for a period of time,” Kelly said.
This is a particularly possible scenario if the disease gets to Haiti or Central America, he said. If the disease gets to countries like Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador, it will cause a panic and people will flee the region, the general said.
“If it breaks out, it’s literally, ‘Katie bar the door,’ and there will be mass migration into the United States,” Kelly said. “They will run away from Ebola, or if they suspect they are infected, they will try to get to the United States for treatment.”
Also, transnational criminal networks smuggle people and those people can be carrying Ebola, the general said. Kelly spoke of visiting the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua with U.S. embassy personnel. At that time, a group of men “were waiting in line to pass into Nicaragua and then on their way north,” he recalled.
“The embassy person walked over and asked who they were and they told him they were from Liberia and they had been on the road about a week,” Kelly continued. “They met up with the network in Trinidad and now they were on their way to the United States — illegally, of course.”
Those men, he said, “could have made it to New York City and still be within the incubation period for Ebola.”
Kelly said his command is in close contact with U.S. Africa Command to see what works and what does not as it prepares for a possible outbreak in the area of operations.
NSA spying on Petrobras, if proven, is industrial espionage -Rousseff
By Anthony Boadle
(Reuters) – Reports that the United States spied on Brazilian oil company Petrobras, if proven, would be tantamount to industrial espionage and have no security justification, Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff said on Monday.
Brazil’s Globo television network reported on Sunday that the U.S. National Security Agency hacked into the computer networks of Petrobras and other companies, including Google Inc. , citing documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
The report came as Brazil is preparing to auction rights to tap some of the largest oil finds in the world in recent decades, deposits trapped under a salt layer off its Atlantic coast. State-run Petrobras, Brazil’s largest company and a source of national pride, made the discoveries in recent years and will be a mandatory partner in developing all of the new deep-sea fields.
The Globo report added tension to relations between Washington and Brasilia already strained by previous disclosures of NSA spying on internet communications in Brazil, including email messages and phone calls of Rousseff herself.
An angry Rousseff has repeatedly demanded an explanation. At stake is a state visit by Rousseff to the White House on Oct. 23 to meet President Barack Obama and discuss a possible $4 billion jet fighter deal, cooperation on oil and biofuels technology, as well as other commercial agreements.
“If the facts reported by the press are confirmed, it will be evident that the motive for the spying attempts is not security or the war on terrorism but strategic economic interests,” Rousseff said in a statement.
The U.S. government has said the secret internet surveillance programs disclosed by Snowden in June are aimed at monitoring suspected terrorist activity and do look at the content of private messages or phone calls.
PETROBAS NOT A SECURITY THREAT
“Clearly, Petrobras is not a threat to the security of any country,” Rousseff said, adding that the company is one of the world’s largest oil assets and belongs to the Brazilian people.
Brazil will take steps to protect itself, its government and its companies, Rousseff said, without elaborating. She said such espionage and interception of data were illegal and had no place in the relations between two democratic nations.
On Friday, Obama met with Rousseff during a summit of leaders of the world’s largest economies in St. Petersburg, Russia, and pledged to look into the reports that the NSA had snooped on her personal communications and those of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto when he was still a candidate.
She said Obama had promised her a reply by Wednesday.
Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Alberto Figueiredo is scheduled to meet in Washington on the same day with Obama’s national security adviser Susan Rice, Brazilian officials said.
Globo did not say when the alleged spying took place, what data might have been gathered or what exactly the NSA may have been seeking. The television report showed slides from an NSA presentation, dated May 2012, that it said was used to show new agents how to spy on private computer networks.
In addition to Google and Petrobras the presentation suggested the NSA had tapped into systems operated by France’s foreign ministry and the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, an international bank cooperative known as Swift through which many cross-border financial transactions take place.
Brazilian officials said the spying report would not affect the upcoming auction of rights to extract oil from the giant Libra oil field, which will go ahead as scheduled on Oct. 21.
Some Brazilian politicians have suggested that U.S. companies should be excluded from the bidding, but experts said that is legally impossible according to the terms of the auction.
Libra has estimated reserves of between 8 and 12 billion barrels of oil, according to Brazilian oil regulator ANP.
Brazil is counting on the new oil production to consolidate its emergence as a world economic power and take the country’s development to a new level. Rousseff signed a law on Monday that designates the royalties from the new oil production contracts for health and education programs.
New Ultra-Deepwater Drillship Laguna Star Arrives in Brazil
The Laguna Star, QGOG Constellation’s new ultra-deepwater drillship, arrived, Nov. 7, in Brazil. Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard, located in South Korea, built the Laguna Star as well as the Amaralina Star drillship, which is currently in operation by QGOG.
The unit will be operated by its subsidiary, Queiroz Galvão Óleo e Gás (QGOG), in water depths of up to 10,000 feet and well depths of up to 40,000 feet. It is equipped to operate in ultra-deepwater including the Brazilian pre-salt area.
The Laguna Star is the second drillship to be operated by QGOG, after Amaralina Star, which arrived in Brazil in August, 2012. The unit contributes to expanding and diversifying QGOG’s portfolio in ultra-deepwater drilling.
“The arrival of Laguna Star is another key milestone for the QGOG Constellation’s ultra-deepwater operations and, together with Amaralina Star, reinforces our operational track record,” said QGOG Constellation CEO Leduvy Gouvea.
These two drillships are chartered to Petrobras under six-year contracts, with options to renew for six additional years. Drilling services will be provided by QGOG.
Shipbuilding Tribune – New Ultra-Deepwater Drillship Laguna Star Arrives in Brazil.
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Wrecking a Nation: Oil, Dependency, and Redistribution
Here’s how the economic and political system of a nation is destroyed.
Every price increase of just a dime per gallon of gasoline at the pump extracts approximately $5 billion from the pockets of U.S. consumers over the course of a year.
On top of killing family budgets, with a dollar per gallon jump at the pumps picking our pockets of $50 billion per year, there is on the macro level an inverse relationship between the price of oil and the overall health of the economy — oil price hikes deliver less job growth, less demand for labor, more unemployment, more poverty, more inequality, more inflation, lower real income increases, and smaller advances in the standard of living.
Additionally, higher oil prices directly cause greater amounts of U.S. capital to be exported, both to pay the higher prices and to pay for the growing levels of imported oil.
In 1985, the U.S. imported 25 percent of its oil usage. Today, it’s 61 percent. And still we are placing restrictions on increases in domestic production, both for oil and other sources of energy.
A few days back, President Obama, rather than sticking around a couple hours to explain to the American people or to the U.S. Congress why we were going to war in Libya, flew off to Brazil to hand out a permit to allow deep sea oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil’s state-run oil company, Petrobras. Capitalist companies in America need not apply.
This particular foreign deal was an especially snug and nostalgic fit for Obama. Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff is somewhat of a Latin form of Obama’s old Weather Underground chum Bernardine Dohrn.
In earlier days, Rousseff, a former Marxist guerrilla, was charged with running with a gang of redistributionists who accumulated revolutionary capital by way of kidnapping foreign diplomats for ransom.
A top priority for Rousseff today mirrors the “spread the wealth around” objective that Obama stated to Joe the plumber.
Dohrn, just home from a trip to Cuba in 1969 where she hoped to pick up some pointers on how to impose a “classless” society on the United States, displayed her true psychopathic colors in a speech she made to the Weathermen’s “War Council.” Speaking elatedly of the murders by the Charlie Manson gang of actress Sharon Tate, coffee heiress Abigail Folger, and three other people, Dohrn proclaimed, “First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into the victims’ stomachs! Wild!”
That’s the fully hateful Bernardine on public display, seeing herself as a new George Washington, a revolutionary fighter for a new nation. It’s the same role, except this founding mother was in serious need of a super-sized bottle of antipsychotic drugs and a super-tight straight-jacket.
Of all the places for candidate Obama to kick off his political career in 1995 in his first run for the Illinois State Senate, he picked the living room of Bernardine Dohrn and husband Bill Ayers, co-founder of the Weather Underground and, more recently, the national vice president for curriculum studies at the American Educational Research Association.
I’d have kept up my guard when Bernardine sashayed out of the kitchen and began circulating around with the hor dourves and metal forks.
In any case, it’s no surprise that things are coming apart, especially on energy. “If somebody wants to build a coal-fired plant, they can,” pronounced Obama during the presidential campaign. “It’s just that it will bankrupt them because they’re going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”
What’s the end game? “Suicide Mission Accomplished”?
Ralph R. Reiland is an associate professor of economics at Robert Morris University in Pittsburgh.
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Huisman Builds New Production Facility in Brazil
Huisman, specialist in lifting, drilling and subsea solutions, has announced its plans to build a new production facility in Brazil and recently initiated the land fill works. The new facility will be located alongside the river Itajai-Açu in the city of Navegantes in Santa Catarina state, a state in the southern part of Brazil bordering the Atlantic Ocean. This facility will be used for the manufacturing of construction equipment for the Brazilian offshore market.
The first investment phase includes over 15,000 square meter of production facilities. The next investment phase will include a 200m long quay side with an artificial bay to protect vessels from the seasonal river’s high currents. With the quayside in place, the Huisman do Brasil facility will be easily accessible for seagoing vessels, allowing for fast installation, commissioning and testing of the Huisman designed and built offshore construction equipment onboard. The new Huisman production facility is planned to be operational in the second half of 2013.
Subsea World News – Huisman Builds New Production Facility in Brazil.
Brazil: InterMoor Completes Conductors for Papa Terra Project
InterMoor, an Acteon company, has completed installation of the drilling and production conductors for the Papa Terra project, announced Global President Tom Fulton. Petrobras serves as the operator of the Papa Terra concession with a 62.5 percent interest; Chevron holds the remaining 37.5 percent interest.
InterMoor was responsible for the design, procurement, fabrication and installation of 15 conductors for the project. Fabricated at InterMoor’s 24-acre, Morgan City, La., facility, the conductors are 36 inches (91 centimeters) in diameter and 187 feet (57 meters) long.
InterMoor chartered the Skandi Skolten, DOF Subsea’s Construction Anchor Handling Vessel, and the installation barge with a customized conductor launch system. For conductor driving, InterMoor used MENCK’s MHU-270T DWS which included a deepwater hydraulic hammer capable of providing a driving energy of 270 kilojoules at a water depth of 3,281 feet (1000 meters) combined with MENCK’s girdle-type electro-hydraulic power pack and umbilical support system. Generating hydraulic power at depth, rather than at the surface, means no hydraulic hose, therefore minimalizing environmental impact and energy loss.
The conductors were installed in water depths of 3,937 feet (1,200 meters) in the southern Campos Basin off the coast of Brazil. The installation took place in April 2012. InterMoor’s conductor services optimize conductor design to meet project-specific load and fatigue requirements, and the unique patented installation method allows installation without the need of a construction vessel. A standard Anchor Handling Vessel is sufficient, leading to a more economical installation off the rig’s critical path.
“We are proud to have successfully completed this important installation for Petrobras and to be part of the first offshore tension-leg, wellhead platform in Brazil,” said Fulton. “Our collaboration with sister company MENCK proved to be an effective partnership, and InterMoor remains the only company worldwide to offer a full conductor installation service in deep water.”
“InterMoor has been developing its strength in the Brazil market through our office in Rio de Janeiro, and this project completion confirms the breadth of our capabilities in the region,” added John Riggs, Managing Director for InterMoor do Brasil.
Subsea World News – InterMoor Completes Conductors for Papa Terra Project (Brazil).
- Papa Terra Project Faces Delay (Brazil) (worldmaritimenews.com)
- Brazil: Petrobras Finishes Deck Mating Operation for P-55 Platform (worldmaritimenews.com)
- Petrobras Hurt by Transocean Rig Loss in Brazilian Court – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
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Amaralina Star Drillship Arrives in Brazil
QGOG Constellation announces the arrival to Brazil of the ultra-deepwater drillship Amaralina Star on August 25, to be operated by its subsidiary, Queiroz Galvão Óleo e Gás (QGOG).
The unit was built to operate in ultra-deepwaters to water depths of up to 10,000 feet and to drill wells depths of up to 40,000 feet. It will be able to operate in the Brazilian pre-salt area.
The Amaralina Star incorporates the highest technological standards and will contribute to expanding and diversifying QGOG’s expertise in ultra-deepwater drilling. QGOG differentiates itself through deploying cutting-edge technology and a specialized and well-trained workforce.
“Operating the Amaralina Star, a state of the art ultra-deepwater rig, is a key milestone for the Company, as it will be the first drillship we will operate, expanding our know-how in the area of offshore operations”, said QGOG President Leduvy Gouvea.
The Amaralina Star was built by the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard, located in South Korea. The shipyard is also currently building the Laguna Star drillship, which belongs to QGOG Constellation and will be operated by QGOG.
The two units have been chartered to Petrobras under a six-year contract, with options to renew for six additional years. Drilling services will be provided by QGOG.
Amaralina Star Drillship Arrives in Brazil| Offshore Energy Today.
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Houston, TX: Petrobras Awards Subsea Supply Contract to Dril-Quip (Brazil)
Dril-Quip, Inc. today announced that Dril-Quip do Brasil LTDA, its wholly owned subsidiary, has been awarded a four-year contract by Petrobras, Brazil’s national oil company, for the supply of subsea wellhead systems and associated tools to be used in the drilling of deepwater wells offshore Brazil.
Based on current exchange rates and after Brazilian taxes, the contract is valued at $650 million if all of the equipment under the contract is ordered. Amounts will be included in Dril-Quip’s backlog as purchase orders are received under the contract. Dril-Quip expects to begin delivering products under the contract in the second half of 2013.
The contract is subject to customary terms and conditions for agreements of this type, including termination, extension, product inspection, local content requirements and price adjustment provisions.
Dril-Quip is a leading manufacturer of highly engineered offshore drilling and production equipment, which is well suited for use in deepwater, harsh environment and severe service applications.
Subsea World News – Petrobras Awards Subsea Supply Contract to Dril-Quip (Brazil).
Continents of the World
Mb50's "Liquid Mud" Rant 