Tuesday 12 October 2004

Black gold

After Rio, I am in Macaé, staying with a friend. Macaé used to be a small provincial town. Now that it is the base for 80% of the Brazillian oil production, its has grown 10 times and has lots of foreign companies willing to provide Brazil with the best drilling technology. It seems to work because, according to predictions, Brazil should be able to produce enough oil for its internal consumption by 2005 and should become a net exporter by 2006. The good thing is that because all the drilling is quite a long way offshore, still within Brazillian waters but only just, the sea front has a nice, clean beach and the presence of the oil industry is only visible through the names of the companies that have an address here.

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