By Jonathan Wheatley and Richard Lapper, FT.com site

Published: Feb 21, 2007

Jonathan Wheatley and Richard Lapper, speak to Brazil’s foreign minister Celso Amorim who insists Brazil is not about to adopt 21st century socialism.

(mais…)

Antônio Márcio Buainain* – O Estado de São Paulo

Nesta temporada de final de campeonatos estaduais vem à mente aquela imagem da bola roubada quando o gol já estava praticamente feito para caracterizar a polêmica global sobre inflação de alimentos, que coloca o biocombustível – visto até então como uma virtuosa contribuição para reduzir o aquecimento global e como alternativa para a escassez do petróleo – no papel de vilão. As declarações de personalidades mundiais (“o biocombustível é crime contra a humanidade”, Jean Ziegler, consultor da ONU; “é problema moral”, Strauss-Khan, diretor-geral do FMI) indicam o potencial explosivo do debate, cujos efeitos sobre o futuro deste promissor segmento não podem ser negligenciados.

É possível contra-atacar afirmando que “problema moral” é manter o “bolsa-vaca”, que distribui em média US$ 3,50 por dia às vacas européias, enquanto 75% da população africana vive com menos de US$ 2 por dia, e que “crime contra a humanidade” é praticar políticas protecionistas que impedem o desenvolvimento dos países mais pobres, ou destinar bilhões de dólares a guerras com pretextos mentirosos. Ainda que válidos, é provável que esses argumentos encontrem ouvidos de mercador pelo mundo afora e não sejam suficientes para evitar os efeitos negativos imediatos sobre o negócio do biocombustível.

Os fatos são relativamente claros. Os preços das commodities já se vinham elevando desde 2002, em resposta, antes de tudo, à elevação da demanda associada às mudanças estruturais na geografia comercial, à conjuntura favorável da economia mundial e ao crescimento da renda nos países em desenvolvimento. Outros fatores, como a elevação do preço do petróleo – insumo básico para a cadeia da produção e comercialização de alimentos – e a instabilidade financeira, também contribuíram. Só a partir de em 2006, e de forma mais forte em 2007, a demanda de grãos para a produção de biocombustível nos EUA e na Europa entra para reforçar a tendência de alta.

Tradicionalmente a oferta agrícola responde quase de imediato aos estímulos de mercado. A evolução recente da oferta mundial não acompanhou o ritmo da demanda, devido, entre outras razões, à incerteza que caracteriza o mercado agrícola mundial, sujeito a forte protecionismo e suscetível à influência das políticas americana e européia. Uma simples decisão da política agrícola dos EUA ou da União Européia pode mudar radicalmente o mercado, a favor ou contra, como comprova a decisão de produzir biocombustível de grãos. A agricultura moderna exige investimentos relevantes dos produtores e dos países. Como investir sem garantias de acesso aos mercados, sem recursos fiscais e sem financiamento internacional? O economista brasileiro Otaviano Canuto, vice-presidente executivo do BID, já tinha chamado a atenção para a seriedade da agflation e da assimetria dos impactos sobre a balança comercial, inflação doméstica e pobreza dos países da América Latina e do mundo (Global agflation, energy security and bio-fuels, in www.rgemonitor.com).

Também é fato claro que o vínculo entre aginflação e biocombustível se deve à decisão americana de produzir etanol a partir de grãos, e que pouco ou nada tem que ver com a produção brasileira à base de cana-de-açúcar. Ao contrário do que ocorre no EUA, a produção do etanol no Brasil vem crescendo juntamente com a de grãos e alimentos em geral. O dinamismo do agronegócio brasileiro contribuiu para conter a elevação de preços, que teria sido maior sem soja, carne, milho, açúcar, algodão e frutas brasileiros.

Os fatos precisam ser analisados e discutidos exaustivamente. Mas não é suficiente. Aqui estamos diante da “dimensão político-cultural dos mercados”, cuja importância o sociólogo Ricardo Abramovay, professor da USP, ressalta ao analisar o papel da ciência e das inovações tecnológicas (Bem-vindo ao mundo da polêmica, jornal Valor, 1º/11/2007). A racionalidade econômica e verdades científicas precisam ser sancionadas pela sociedade para se afirmarem como inovações e romperem paradigmas. E para isso uma comunicação adequada – não confundir com propaganda – é muito importante. O estrago está feito. Basta ver a imprensa européia ou a opinião cética ou contrária do cidadão nas principais capitais do mundo. Sem presunção, será preciso reconquistar corações e mentes para o biocombustível e para isso não podemos fechar os olhos para a questão alimentar. Nossa melhor resposta terá de vir do dinamismo do nosso agronegócio.

*Antônio Márcio Buainain é professor do Instituto de Economia da Unicamp. E-mail: buainain@eco.unicamp.br

Confesso que não percebo a lógica de alguns jornalistas. Uma autoridade do governo diz que é possível que o Brasil tenha reservas de petróleo gigantescas e que as reservas do “Carioca”, na Bacia de Santos, podem ser cinco vezes maiores que as do Tupi, tudo isto a confirmar e verificar. Os jornais transformam está declaração em um furo, sem checar se existe alguma novidade nesta declaração, e as bolsas se entusiasmam com o “furo” jornalístico, isto prova que o governo nomeia pessoas incompetentes?

Leiam a nota de Dora Kramer hoje e a seguir o artigo da Folha, também de hoje. Tudo confirma que nenhum segredo foi violado, nenhuma declaração foi além do que já tinha sido dito e publicado e os investidores não foram enganados com nenhuma informação manipulada.

Mas jornais e rádios continuam atacando o governo e dando destaque ao que não tem importância.

Leiam e julguem vocês mesmos. LF

Erro de pessoa

Dora Kramer

“O ex-deputado Haroldo Lima, hoje diretor-geral da Agência Nacional de Petróleo, certamente não se precipitou sobre descobertas da Petrobrás por má-fé.

Como político, agiu conforme a lógica de uma atividade que utiliza a versão sem preocupação rigorosa com fato consumado.

Isso não o absolve do erro crasso. Ao contrário, amplia a culpa do dano aos responsáveis por sua nomeação.

Evidencia a inadequação das indicações políticas para cargos que exigem formação, conhecimento e treino sobre os códigos e mecânica do setor. Quem não tem intimidade com o que faz nem dispõe da visão completa sobre como se faz, em algum momento faz bobagem.”

Dados circulam desde o final de 2007

DA SUCURSAL DO RIO – FOLHA DE SÃO PAULO

As informações sobre o potencial da área de exploração conhecida como Carioca (bloco BM-S-9) circulam entre analistas do setor, consultores e publicações estrangeiras desde o fim do ano passado.
A própria ANP, em nota, afirmou que a informação sobre o potencial do campo Carioca já havia sido publicada na coluna “What’s New in Exploration”, na edição de fevereiro da revista “World Oil” -uma publicação especializada sediada em Houston, no Texas.
No texto, o jornalista Arthur Berman relata a descoberta de três campos gigantes no litoral brasileiro, Tupi, Júpiter e Carioca: “Se os relatos sobre o tamanho potencial da estrutura de Carioca/Pão-de-Açúcar se mostrarem corretos, com a estimativa de 33 bilhões de barris de óleo (a média entre 25 bilhões e 40 bilhões de barris), e as reservas estimadas de Tupi e Júpiter forem precisas, em 6,5 bilhões de barris cada uma (a média entre 5 bilhões e 8 bilhões), o Carioca/Pão-de-Açúcar seria o terceiro maior campo de óleo do mundo”.
Antes, no dia 17 de dezembro, o site norte-americano “Next Energy News” relatou que a Petrobras havia descoberto o maior campo de petróleo dos últimos 30 anos, com potencial cinco vezes maior do que o verificado em Tupi. A publicação credita a funcionários da estatal brasileira a informação de que o campo Pão-de-Açúcar poderá produzir até 40 bilhões de barris de petróleo.
Também em dezembro, no dia 11, a agência de notícias especializada em negócios “Business News Americas” relatou a existência de duas áreas de exploração na bacia de Santos que poderiam ser maiores do que o campo de Tupi -e credita a informação a um relatório do banco de investimento UBS Pactual, divulgado em dezembro. Além do UBS Pactual, o Crédit Suisse também distribuiu, em novembro, um relatório sobre a Petrobras intitulado “O novo paradigma da exploração”. O texto detalha as principais ações de exploração da estatal em quatro campos do pré-sal: Tupi, Caxaré, Pirambu e Carioca.
Uma das fontes de informação mais utilizadas pelos jornalistas que cobrem o setor nos Estados Unidos são os relatórios da IHS, uma consultoria com sede em Englewood, no Colorado. Ela produz relatórios, artigos e estudos sobre diversas indústrias -da aeroespacial à do petróleo-, cobrindo a atuação de empresas em todo o mundo. Mas muitas dessas informações não estão abertas ao público, são vendidas. Por meio da IHS, é possível acompanhar as atividades de exploração da Petrobras na bacia de Santos, por exemplo. O serviço pode custar até US$ 5.000 por ano. (ROBERTO MACHADO)

Em momentos em que o protecionismo contra o etanol brasileiro ganha corpo na Europa, o documentario francês Du sucre et des fleurs dans nos moteurs de Jean-Michel Rodrigo põe os pingos nos “i” dos gringos. Vale a pena assistir e recomendá-lo aos que entendem francês.

Despite the global interest in the rise of China, no one is paying much attention to its ideas and who produces them. Yet China has a surprisingly lively intellectual class whose ideas may prove a serious challenge to western liberal hegemony

Mark Leonard is the executive director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His book What Does China Think? has just been published by 4th Estate

I will never forget my first visit, in 2003, to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) in Beijing. I was welcomed by Wang Luolin, the academy’s vice-president, whose grandfather had translated Marx’s Das Kapital into Chinese, and Huang Ping, a former Red Guard. Sitting in oversized armchairs, we sipped ceremonial tea and introduced ourselves. Wang Luolin nodded politely and smiled, then told me that his academy had 50 research centres covering 260 disciplines with 4,000 full-time researchers.

As he said this, I could feel myself shrink into the seams of my vast chair: Britain’s entire think tank community is numbered in the hundreds, Europe’s in the low thousands; even the think-tank heaven of the US cannot have more than 10,000. But here in China, a single institution—and there are another dozen or so think tanks in Beijing alone—had 4,000 researchers. Admittedly, the people at CASS think that many of the researchers are not up to scratch, but the raw figures were enough.

(mais…)

By Sheila McNulty in Houston and agencies – FINANCIAL TIMES

Published: November 8 2007 22:43 | Last updated: November 9 2007 08:38

Petroleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil company, on Thursday said well tests revealed its Tupi field may contain as much as 8bn barrels of oil and natural gas, which would considerably bolster the country’s energy clout.

The estimate, if correct, would raise the country’s reserves by 62 per cent and just about put Tupi on par with Norway’s 8.5bn barrels of proved oil reserves.

Brazil has 14.4bn barrels of proved reserves of oil and natural-gas equivalent.

The news pushed up Petrobras’ shares 9.95 reais, or 14.2 per cent, to 80.2 on the São Paulo stock exchange, the biggest rise in more than nine years.

It also lifted the share price of BG Group, which holds a 25 per cent stake in the field for a second day. BG shares opened 33p higher at £10.22, following Thursday’s 10 per cent advance.

Shares in Galp Energia of Portugal, which holds 10 per cent, also rose for a second session. The shares, which had their biggest one-day gain in Lisbon on Thursday, rose 21 per cent €2.60 on Friday to €14.95.

Petrobras’ news release contained few details beyond the fact that the estimates were made after analysis of the formation tests for a second well in the area.

The company also said the oil within was light, which is more valuable because it is cheaper to refine than the heavier crude oil that Brazil mostly produces.

“Tupi changes everything for Brazil and Petrobras,’’ said Carlos Renato Nunes, an oil analyst with São Paulo-based brokerage Coinvalores CCVM who has a buy recommendation on Petrobras shares.

“Tupi is not only huge, its light oil offers huge cost advantages.’’

And at a time when oil is heading towards $100 a barrel, and energy security is high on the agenda of many governments, the news is sure to boost Brazil’s economic influence. Petrobras, already a well-respected national oil company on the world stage, is likely to receive a further boost from the discovery.

“Brazil needs time to evaluate its new oil potential,’’ Dilma Rousseff, president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s cabinet chief, said at a news conference in Rio de Janeiro.

“This could make Brazil jump from an intermediate producer to among the world’s largest producers.’’

Tupi is three-quarters the size of Kazakh­stan’s Kashagan field, which holds 12bn barrels of recoverable crude and was the biggest find in the past 30 years.

There have only been a few gas discoveries in the past 20 years that would rival it, including the Shtokman field in Russia at 23bn barrels of oil equivalent, and two other Russian finds in the 5bn to 10bn range, Andy Latham, vice-president of exploration services at Wood Mackenzie Consultants in London, said.

By JAD MOUAWAD

The New York Times

With oil prices approaching the symbolic threshold of $100 a barrel, the world is headed toward its third energy shock in a generation. But today’s surge is fundamentally different from the previous oil crises, with broad and longer-lasting global implications.

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Hiroke Masuike for The New York Times

Traders at the New York Mercantile Exchange Thursday,
where the price for a barrel of crude oil settled at $95.46.

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Times Topics: Oil and Gasoline

Just as in the energy crises of the 1970s and ’80s, today’s high prices are causing anxiety and pain for consumers, and igniting wider fears about the impact on the economy.

Unlike past oil shocks, which were caused by sudden interruptions in exports from the Middle East, this time prices have been rising steadily as demand for gasoline grows in developed countries, as hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians climb out of poverty and as other developing economies grow at a sizzling pace.

“This is the world’s first demand-led energy shock,” said Lawrence Goldstein, an economist at the Energy Policy Research Foundation of Washington.

Forecasts of future oil prices range widely. Some analysts see them falling next year to $75, or even lower, while a few project $120 oil. Virtually no one foresees a return to the $20 oil of a decade ago, meaning consumers should brace for an era of significantly higher fuel costs.

At the root of the stunning rise in the price of oil, up 56 percent this year and 365 percent in a decade, is a positive development: an unprecedented boom in the world economy.

Demand from China and India alone is expected to double in the next two decades as their economies continue to expand, with people there buying more cars and moving to cities to seek a way of life long taken for granted in the West.

But as prices rise, the global economy is entering uncharted territory. The increase so far does not appear to be hurting economic growth, but many economists wonder how long that will last. “These prices are too high and will end up hurting everybody, producers and consumers alike,” said Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency.

Oil futures closed at $95.46 on the New York Mercantile Exchange yesterday, down nearly 1 percent from the day before. But the price has become volatile, and many analysts expect the psychologically important $100-a-barrel threshold to be breached sometime in the next few weeks.

“Today’s markets feel like the crowds standing up in the final minutes of a football game shouting: ‘Go! Go! Go!,’” said Daniel Yergin, an oil historian and the chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a consulting firm. “People seem almost more relaxed about $100 than they were about $60 or $70 oil.”

Oil is not far from its historic inflation-adjusted high, reached in April 1980 in the aftermath of the Iranian revolution. At the time, oil jumped to the equivalent of $101.70 a barrel in today’s money.

For most of the 20th century, as it transformed the modern world, oil was cheap and abundant. Throughout the 1990s, for example, oil prices averaged $20 a barrel. Even at today’s highs, oil is cheaper than imported bottled water, which would cost $180 a barrel, or milk, at $150 a barrel.

“The concern today is over how will the energy sector meet the anticipated growth in demand over the longer term,” said Linda Z. Cook, a board member of Royal Dutch Shell, the big oil company. “Energy demand is increasing at a rate we’ve not seen before. On the supply side, we’re seeing it is struggling to keep up. That’s the energy challenge.”

More than any other country, China represents the scope of that challenge. As it turned into a global economic behemoth over the last decade, China also became a major energy user. Its economy has grown at a furious pace of about 10 percent a year since the 1990s, lifting nearly 300 million people out of poverty. But rapid industrialization has come at a price: oil demand has more than tripled since 1980, turning a country that was once self-sufficient into a net oil importer.

India and China are home to about a third of humanity. People there are demanding access to electricity, cars, and consumer goods and can increasingly afford to compete with the West for access to resources. In doing so, the two Asian giants are profoundly transforming the world’s energy balance.

Today, China consumes only a third as much oil as the United States, which burns a quarter of the world’s oil each day. By 2030, India and China together will import as much oil as the United States and Japan do today.

While demand is growing fastest abroad, Americans’ appetite for big cars and large houses has pushed up oil demand steadily in this country, too. Europe has managed to rein in oil consumption through a combination of high gasoline taxes, small cars and efficient public transportation, but Americans have not. Oil consumption in the United States, where gasoline is far cheaper than in Europe, has jumped to 21 million barrels a day this year, from about 17 million barrels in the early 1990s.

If the Chinese and Indians consumed as much oil for each person as Americans do, the world’s oil consumption would be more than 200 million barrels a day, instead of the 85 million barrels it is today. No expert regards that level of production as conceivable.

More realistically, global demand is expected to rise to about 115 million barrels a day by 2030, a level that is likely to tax the world’s ability to pump more oil out of the ground. Already, the world is running on a limited cushion of spare capacity; any interruption in supplies, whether from hurricanes or armed conflict, causes prices to spike.

“We don’t have any shock absorbers,” Mr. Goldstein said.

For oil companies, high prices have set off a frenzied search for new sources around the world. After a long lull in investments through most of the 1990s because of low prices, major oil companies have invested billions of dollars to bring in more supplies.

The trouble is that these big new developments take a long time, and companies have been hobbled by higher costs. The cost of drilling rigs, for example, the basic tool of the trade, has doubled in recent years. Analysts say it will take time, but new supplies will eventually work their way to market.

Supplies have also been hampered by political tension in the Persian Gulf, the war in Iraq, devastating hurricanes in the oil-producing Gulf of Mexico, production difficulties in Venezuela and violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich province. Many of these geopolitical factors have contributed to a political risk premium variously estimated at $25 to $50 a barrel. Recently, in just nine weeks, oil jumped from $75 to $95 a barrel for little apparent reason.

“Fifty-dollar-a-barrel oil seems so far away at this point,” said Thomas Bentz, a senior energy analyst at BNP Paribas in New York, citing a figure that seemed an impossibly high price for oil only a few years ago. “Oil will stop rising when we see demand destruction. We haven’t seen that yet.”

When will it happen? Veterans of the oil business, having lived through booms and busts, say no one should count on oil rising forever. Economic slowdowns in China or the United States — or especially, in both — would probably send prices tumbling.

It happened a mere decade ago, after the Asian financial crisis sent economies there into a tailspin. Global oil prices fell by half, from $20 a barrel to $10, in months.

“It would be a big mistake to think the laws of supply and demand have been abolished,” Mr. Yergin said.

David Lillo/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Smog hit record levels in Santiago, Chile, when Argentina cut back on natural gas shipments.

By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO

The New York Times

SANTIAGO, Chile — For Chile and Argentina, it was the frostiest of winters, and not just the reading on the thermometer.

During one of the coldest South American winters here in decades, neighboring Argentina cut at least 90 percent of the natural gas it sends to Chile 79 times along pipelines that connect the two countries.

Power plants and factories in this smoggy capital were forced to switch to diesel and fuel oil, which belch more air pollution and have nearly quadrupled the cost of producing electricity. Santiago reported its highest number of dangerous smog days in the past seven years.

Argentina’s actions have chilled relations between the two countries. But the impact of South America’s energy crisis is far broader. Across the region, concerns about energy are roiling national politics, generating tensions between neighbors and emerging as one of the biggest brakes to growth and integration.

Energy is the Achilles’ heel of the governments in Brazil, Argentina and Chile, which are struggling to maintain sufficient natural gas supplies after several years of strong economic growth.

“Bottlenecks in energy supply will be a critical policy concern in Latin America over the next two to five years,” said Christopher Garman, the Latin America director at Eurasia Group, a New York-based consulting firm.

Energy concerns are at the top of the agenda for the region’s incumbent leaders, most of whom have high popularity ratings, thanks mostly to buoyant economies riding a wave of higher commodity prices.

But the steady economic growth has only increased energy demand, while governments have failed for a decade to invest enough in natural gas exploration and new power plants to expand their energy supplies.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil is particularly preoccupied with the risk of power shortages that could occur as early as 2009, according to analysts. In an interview in September, he said the region’s gas woes were reason to support new hydroelectric power plants and projects to produce electricity from sugar cane. “I do not want to make Brazil dependent on gas,” he said.

The other alternative is to raise consumer prices or impose austerity measures, something politicians have been reluctant to do. History shows they can help sink a president.

When Brazil suffered an energy crunch in 2000, President Fernando Henrique Cardoso implored consumers to conserve, imposing penalties on those who did not. In the end, a major crisis was averted, but the government’s approval rating dropped by a third, and Mr. da Silva — not Mr. Cardoso’s chosen successor — was elected in 2002.

Néstor Kirchner, Argentina’s president, has steadfastly refused to raise his country’s gas and electricity prices, which are among the lowest in the world, ahead of the Oct. 28 election. Mr. Kirchner’s wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, is the leading candidate to succeed him.

Instead, his government placed winter energy-use restrictions on industries and cut off its neighbor to the west, Chile.

Mr. Kirchner’s strategy has satisfied voters and kept Argentina’s economy humming, for now. But the low gas and power prices have scared away needed foreign investment in energy development and raised fears of runaway inflation.

Argentina could be digging itself a bigger hole to crawl out of. While the government refuses to impose on residential consumers to cut back, Argentina’s energy demands are rising faster than supply.

Power plants have little or no spare capacity and are suffering from a lack of maintenance, increasing the chances of brownouts or blackouts, said Sylvie D’Apote, an analyst with Cambridge Energy Research Associates.

Argentina’s energy troubles began with the crushing economic crisis of 2001, when its currency, the peso, was devalued almost overnight by some 300 percent. In a panic, the government moved energy rates from dollars to pesos.

Suddenly Argentine natural gas was the cheapest in Latin America, and residential electricity rates were among the lowest in the world.

For Mrs. Kirchner, if she is elected, changing course would be risky. Raising energy prices would only worsen inflation and raise the ire of Argentine voters, potentially spoiling the Kirchners’ plans to tag-team the presidency for the next 12 years.

Argentina’s economy, which is expected to grow this year by about 8 percent for a fifth straight year, is struggling with rising inflation pegged by private economists at nearly 20 percent, more than double official government claims.

Mr. Kirchner has denied there is even an energy crisis, noting that residential consumers have yet to feel a pinch.

Instead, it is Chile that is being squeezed. With few energy resources of its own, Chile had come to rely on Argentina for natural gas. The neighbors signed contracts in 1994, giving Chile a cheap source of fuel and a way to help clean Santiago’s notoriously smoggy air.

Argentine officials say that the Argentine Congress never approved the energy accords, making them nonbinding. The Chileans call that claim ludicrous.

The energy crunch is already contributing to inflation in Chile. Chile’s inflation is expected to be 6.4 percent this year, nearly a third of which is attributable to the cost of energy and food, said Pablo Goldberg, chief economist for Latin America at Merrill Lynch.

Political problems have limited Chile’s energy options. Bolivia, which has the largest gas reserves in the region, has forbidden Argentina from re-exporting Bolivian gas to Chile because of a decades-old dispute over maritime access rights.

Analysts have doubts in any case about just how much natural gas Bolivia, which nationalized its gas sector last year, can extract without foreign investment.

With few options, Chile’s government, led by President Michelle Bachelet, is moving on several fronts to diversify its energy supplies.

Two liquefied natural gas terminals should be completed by the middle of 2009. Chile is also opening up some land for oil and gas exploration, though it historically has found little.

Ms. Bachelet received a government-financed study last week exploring the prospects for building nuclear power plants, which is likely to be a controversial decision for the next government.

“We can’t just wait with our arms crossed and hope for a miracle to happen,” said Antonio Baciagalupo, the chief executive of GNL Quintero, the consortium building the liquefied natural gas plant near Santiago.

Consumidores brasileiros serão atingidos em cheio pelo choque energético que está se formando

Por Raul Pilati
raul.pilati@correioweb.com.br

Duas linhas de evolução econômica do planeta conspiram a favor do Brasil. A crescente demanda por energia está ampliando um mercado já bastante aquecido. Some-se ao consumo em alta o desafio de atendê-lo reduzindo as emissões de poluentes que alimentam o efeito estufa. Os segmentos da área de biocombustíveis não poderiam estar mais entusiasmados.

Como o Brasil é o maior exportador de álcool do planeta, está em posição privilegiada. Não resta dúvida de que uma grande mudança de paradigma está a caminho. Junto com as oportunidades de negócios, porém, vem uma polêmica: os efeitos sobre os demais produtos agropecuários. Não é uma falsa discussão, como tentam apresentar alguns especialistas. Começou com os artigos de Fidel Castro, que questionou a destinação de terras e o trato aos trabalhadores. A iniciativa causou estranheza. Mas veio então a FAO (Organização das Nações Unidas para a Agricultura e Alimentação) e fez um alerta parecido.

Pressões
A demanda por biocombustíveis, segundo o organismo, vai fazer subir os preços dos alimentos a níveis recordes ainda em 2007. A elevação deve ser de 5%, com custo adicional de US$ 400 bilhões, segundo estudo recente. Principalmente devido às cotações do milho e dos óleos vegetais, como o de soja. Os mais afetados, afirma a FAO, serão os países em desenvolvimento, que gastarão este ano 9% a mais com importação de alimentos. Em relação a 2000, a alta será de 90%.

O Brasil respondeu por 42,5% da produção mundial de etanol em 2005 e os Estados Unidos, com o uso do milho, por 44,5%. A produção de biodiesel respondeu por 3,8 bilhões de litros. Segundo artigo da Foreign Affairs, para produzir 95 litros de etanol a partir do milho são necessários 200 quilos de grãos, o suficiente para alimentar uma pessoa por um ano.

Efeitos internos
Mesmo para os consumidores brasileiros, o movimento trará múltiplos efeitos. A popularização mundial do etanol como combustível implica mais concorrentes pelo mesmo produto. A inexpugnável lei do mercado vai levar usineiros e plantadores a optar pelo melhor preço — seja interno ou externo —, o que é um risco adicional de abastecimento.

Existem muitos investimentos em novas usinas em andamento. A produção brasileira pode atingir 38 bilhões de litros em 2012, mais do que tudo que foi produzido no mundo em 2005 (36,5 bilhões de litros). Bilhões de dólares estão sendo carreados para o segmento. Só a Petrobras está colocando US$ 2,5 bilhões. Mas até as novas usinas terão conseqüências. Avançando sobre áreas ocupadas por outras culturas, estão estimulando sua conversão em canaviais. O plantio de grãos e a criação de gado estão sendo empurrados mais para o interior do país, para fronteiras ainda incipientes. Portanto, mais distantes das estruturas de transporte e dos centros consumidores, o que leva a fretes mais caros.

É inevitável que o setor sucroalcooleiro brasileiro se beneficie da onda que está apenas começando. O choque de combustível, como descrito pelo presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, é real e está só no início. Há uma revolução em curso. Mas não será indolor, nem neutra. É preciso responsabilidade dos produtores e bom senso do governo para não ficarmos apenas deslumbrados com a oportunidade que se abre. Leia a integra da coluna de Raul Pilati, no Correio Braziliense (para assinantes)

Barack Obama showed up for a sparsely-attended news conference in Brentwood Tuesday to outline his plans to reduce greenhouse gases. The scene was a gas station that sells fuel made from vegetable oils. Good so far.

Trouble was he drove up in one of those big hulking SUVs that political campaigns (and the Secret Service) are so fond of driving. “When I’m president,” Obama said, “any vehicle purchased by the federal government” will have a flexible fuel system that can run on ethanol. “Government should lead the way,” he said.

His stop in Brentwood, meant to underline his green credentials, came on a day when Obama quietly backtracked on his longheld support for a controversial plan to promote the use of coal, as Peter Wallsten explains in a Times story this morning.

According to The Times’ Seema Mehta at the Brentwood gas station, Obama acknowledged he is behind Hillary Clinton by double-digits in this weeks Times Poll. “These polls are going to fluctuate and gyrate,” he said. But he predicted a good showing in next month’s quarterly campaign fundraising reports.

“We haven’t gotten into the guts of this campaign,” Obama said. “That will happen after Labor Day.”

Whatever happened to starting campaigns after Labor Day of the election year, not the year before?

–Andrew Malcolm

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