Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling

But in Brazil, not in the U.S. If it is OK in Brazil, why not the U.S.? And when our treasury is strapped for cash, we're sending $2 billion and perhaps more to Brazil?

Wall Street Journal article

You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil's Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil's planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a "preliminary commitment" letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

But look on the bright side. If President Obama has embraced offshore drilling in Brazil, why not in the old U.S.A.? The land of the sorta free and the home of the heavily indebted has enormous offshore oil deposits, and last year ahead of the November elections, with gasoline at $4 a gallon, Congress let a ban on offshore drilling expire.

And before anyone claims the OP title is misleading because it doesn't mention Brazil, read the T&C. I used the exact article title as we are supposed to do.

He's a freaking hypocrite!!! (And I wish they had an emoticon with a middle finger!!!). Sure it's alright to cap and tax the crap out of Americans but when it comes to the quid pro quo for his buddy George Soros - write a check to Brazil! When are the stupid mouth-breathing liberals going to finally figure out that this guy is NOT on their team!?!?

already being discussed

US oil industry has crashed, Obama is paying Brazil to drill and sell us oil

Originally posted by LeaderOfProgress
already being discussed

US oil industry has crashed, Obama is paying Brazil to drill and sell us oil

And allowed because it is in a separate forum ...

BTW, I have starred, flagged and also contributed to your thread.


[edit on 8/21/2009 by centurion1211]

Excellent! $2 billion more that could have been spent in our own country to put American workers on the payroll. Lots of US companies would love a small piece of that pie.

There is an interesting connection to Petrobras and Obama via George Soros.

As reported at Bloomberg.com, George Soros purchased an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), (better known as Petrobras) in Q2. The Brazilian oil company is now the largest holding in his fund, amounting to 22 percent of the total $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management LLC

Some more recent activity surrounding Soros and Petrobras

Via Bloomberg

* Soros Fund Management LLC, billionaire investor George Soros’s hedge-fund company, cut stakes in Petroleo Brasileiro SA and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan, its biggest holdings in the first quarter, according to a filing.

* The New York-based fund sold 5 million U.S. shares of Petrobras, (PBR) as the company is known, during the quarter, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Soros’s remaining 32 million shares of the Brazilian state-controlled oil company were valued at $963 million at the end of the quarter.

* The fund also held 5.6 million shares of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan-based Potash (POT) at the end of the first quarter, compared with 5.9 million shares as of Dec. 31.

seekingalpha.com...

Barry is just steering a little business back to his good friend and long time financial supporter. Many people believe that Soros is one of Obama's leading puppet masters. Soros initially invested $811 million in Petrobras. He just sold 5 million shares in May and the remainder of his Petro holdings were last valued at $963 million. Not to shabby Soros. I hope Obama isn't giving you any inside advice.


[edit on 21-8-2009 by jibeho]

You folks continously allow yourselves to be dooped. You talk about the PTB BS all day long and yet you wilfully forget the corporations and their powerful hold, the rich elite. So long as folks aimlessly continue to search every pocket for oil, only to be at the mercy of the oil cartels in the middle east we are going to find ourselves in one energy crises or another.

I mean how long do any of you think this resource is going to last for us? Do you really think we are going to remain on this resource forevere? Do you know howmuch of a benefit it will be to the US if we invest in alternative fuels? Imagine we no longer became so damn dependent on the middle east, on what price per gallon it is today or tomorrow. Think forward, no backwards.

People ask "well where do you expect us to get this alternative energy", wow, just wow, we will use this excuse now not to focus on it only for our children to have to figure it out.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


Please express your thoughts to your supposed "green" president. The man has got more backroom deals in the kettle than a used car salesman selling "southern cars" in Minnesota.