Is God Brazilian?

The title of my talk at this year’s Investment Symposium will be “Is God Brazilian?” So that ought to give you a clue about what I think lies under all that water column and rock down there.

But whether you come to Vancouver or not, you need to know that the South Atlantic is one of the world’s greatest petroleum provinces.

Some experts think that the hydrocarbon resources in the pre-salt formations off Brazil may rival those of Saudi Arabia in magnitude. We’ll see about that. But it’s beyond dispute at this point that Brazil and its energy resources are a complete game-changer for that nation, and the rest of the energy-consuming world.

The big downside (and it’s big and down, to be sure!) is that today all that oil is under a mile or two of South Atlantic seawater, covered by three or four miles of rock and salt beds — it depends where you’re located on the continental shelf and slope.

But that’s why it takes companies with phenomenal technical and managerial skills, plus deep pockets, to play in this great game. The bottom line is that with the right companies working at it, there’s enough oil down there to make it economic to invest and recover. And that development is going to be the 21st-century national project for Brazil, and one key area of investment for Outstanding Investments.

The Daily Reckoning