Brazil returns oilfield to Ecuador

Brazil returns oilfield to Ecuador
Sep 21, 2008 1:17 PM

Brazilian oil company Petrobras has agreed to give back to Ecuador a controversial oilfield in the heart of the Amazon jungle, President Rafael Correa said on Saturday.

Correa, a leftist former economy minister and ally of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, last year gave Petrobras permission to exploit Block 31, located in Yasuni national park.

But the project is on hold because the company has clashed with Ecuador over taxes, and environmentalists have fiercely opposed any oil activity inside the park that is home to rare tropical species of jaguars and pink dolphins.

"Even after they (Petrobras) invested $200 million (NZD$291.5 million) we were able to get them to transfer Block 31 to (state oil firm) Petroecuador," Correa said during his weekly radio show.

He did not say if the oilfield would be exploited by the state or tendered to other foreign companies.

Petrobras planned to invest more than $300 million (NZD$437.2 million) to develop the oilfield and expected to extract 40,000 barrels of oil per day. Block 31 is considered a key project for OPEC member Ecuador to lift dwindling oil output.

The company said in a statement that it has agreed to terminate its contract for the oilfield, but plans to continue investing in the country.

More:
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/536641/2091957

but the latest polls shows 60% in favor. That doesn't sound all that "tough."

They also promulgate the Corpo/fascist meme that the constitutional reform has something dictatorial about it--that it is to enhance Correa's personal power. What they fail to state is that Correa has an 80% approval rating, and is very clearly doing the will of the people in fighting the corrupt, entrenched power of the rightwing elite in the courts, in government bureaucracies and in vast land holdings and wealth. Think FDR.

"Organized money hates me--and I welcome their hatred."--Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Correa needs a more powerful presidency to reform the country along more democratic lines. The country is currently crippled by vast poverty, and unable to tap into the wealth of talent and intelligence at the bottom--for lack of education, health care, land reform and other bootstrapping of the poor. Corpo 'news' keeps reversing things, and telling the opposite of the truth--that these new leftist presidents want to be "dictators," when the truth is that a more powerful president is necessary to create more democracy and to correct the huge discrepancy between the rich and the poor.

They also called FDR a "dictator."