Questão 1809769

This text refers to the questions from 21 through 30.

1 With the price of oil hovering near \$ 100 a barrel,

the discovery of the biggest deep-water oil field off the

southeastern coast has the potential to transform Brazil into

4 a global energy powerhouse and to reshape the politics of

this energy-starved continent.

While Brazil’s state oil company, PETROBRAS,

7 has known of the field for more than a year, it only finished

assessing its full potential in recent months. It announced on

Nov. 8 that the field held some five billion to eight billion

10 barrels of crude oil and natural gas.

The announcement has everyone in the region, and

beyond, taking notice. A field that size — the biggest in the

13 world since a discovery in Kazakhstan in 2000 — is a

potential political game-changer for Brazil.

In the next five years it is conceivable that Brazil

16 could move ahead of Mexico and Canada in total oil

reserves, becoming second only to Venezuela and the United

States in the energy pecking order of the Americas.

19 This is heady stuff for Brazil, a country that only

last year became a net energy exporter mostly because of its

aggressive push into sugar-cane ethanol and hydroelectric

22 power.

“All of a sudden Brazil is emerging as an energy

power”, said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American

25 Dialogue, a policy group in Washington focusing on Latin

America. “Everything they have developed, from soybeans

to sugar to oil is suddenly working. They have had amazing

28 luck.”

There is little doubt that the find gives Brazil new

influence against energy players like Bolivia and Venezuela,

31 and not just in the economic competition among energy

suppliers, but in the political arena as well.

Much to the chagrin of the United States,

34 Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, has used his nation’s

oil wealth to aggressively push a leftist agenda at home and

abroad. The Brazilian field, known as Tupi, now has the

37 potential to lend more weight to Brazil’s more moderate,

leftist approach.

Already countries around the region have been

40 quick to sense the potential threats and benefits. With news

of the discovery coming just ahead of a meeting of Latin

American leaders in Santiago, Chile, Brazil’s president, Luiz

43 Inácio Lula da Silva, acknowledged there during the meeting

that he was being “treated with a certain deference” by the

other leaders.

46 Mr. Chávez nervously jested that Mr. da Silva was

now an “oil magnate”. He also quickly suggested that the

two nations create an Amazonian energy region similar to the

49 Caribbean and Andean integration efforts Venezuela had

been pushing for.

Internet: <www.nytimes.com> (adapted).

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