Brazil’s Nuclear Power Plans: Three Years after Fukushima
The 2011 Fukushima accident interrupted plans to build four to eight new nuclear power plants and highlighted an internal debate over nuclear energy’s trajectory in Brazil. In anticipation of forthcoming strategy documents, this BrazilWorks Briefing Paper discusses the potential role of nuclear in Brazil’s future energy mix.
Read the entire briefing here: Brazil’s Nuclear Power Plans
The Petrobras Debt Challenge
Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., January 2014
Paula Barbosa provides a timely analysis of Brazil’s government controlled energy company, Petrobras, and its debt and performance since the global financial crisis hit Brazil in 2008. Her purpose is to offer a detailed understanding of the problems and challenges facing Petrobras from the perspective of its accumulating debt as well as its core business operations in oil and gas exploration and production and downstream refining and distributing. The major problematic for Barbosa is government provided financing, mostly through the Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento, known as the BNDES.
This following summary analysis provides an English summary interpretation of Barbosa’s cogent analysis in the aftermath of the recent, first production-sharing auction for offshore, pre-salt blocks in the Libra field in which Petrobras played the central role.
Read the entire briefing here: The Petrobras Debt Challenge
Brazilian Electricity 101
Chris Cote and Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., December 2013
Brazil’s long struggle to achieve energy security now faces a new era as the country’s policymakers and industry leaders work to meet the rising demand for electricity while lowering costs and diversifying the national energy matrix. Since the shocking “blackouts” of 2001 that swept through the country’s most populous, developed and politically important Southeast region, Brazilian policymakers have intensified efforts to increase installed generation capacity, lower tariffs to industrial and residential customers, achieve greater efficiencies through “smart grid” transmission technologies, and attract greater private sector investment to a national campaign to insure that mounting consumer demand for electricity is met today and well into the future.
“Brazilian Electricity 101″ explores and outlines the Brazilian electricity system to advance a practical understanding of this sector’s institutional architecture as well as the challenges and opportunities policymakers, industry leaders, and investors face in the coming decade as the generation, transmission, and distribution system (GTD) continues to mature in tandem with Brazil’s economic development.
Read the entire briefing here: Brazilian Electricity 101
Does Brasilia Matter?
Chris Cote and Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., October 17, 2013
In large part the U.S.-Brazil relationship is decentralized across a number of bilateral dialogues, ranging from the Strategic Energy Dialogue to the Joint Initiative on Urban Sustainability among dozens of other consultative mechanisms. How has U.S. spying on the Brazilian government damaged these dialogues and breached whatever bilateral trust existed before the debacle? Does Washington have the desire to conduct an honest, mutually respectful relationship with its largest South American ally and trading partner or – reckoning back to a Cold War mentality – has it been hoping only to manage this global swing-state, to balance Brazil away from Russia or China, and perhaps – as many in Brazil suggest – prevent her rise?
Read the entire briefing here: Does Brasilia Matter?
The Recent Development of Brazil’s Private Petroleum Companies
Chris Cote and Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., September 30, 2013
This BrazilWorks briefing paper explores the recent development of Brazil’s private national petroleum companies and analyzes their performance in the recent, 11th round block auctions to provide an understanding of their current role in the country’s oil and gas boom and suggest possible paths toward future development. The paper features specific analysis of Petra Energia, S.A., Queiroz Galvão, and the controversial OGX to illustrate the recent development of Brazil’s private national companies.
Read the entire briefing here: The Recent Development of Brazil’s Private Petroleum Producers
Infrastructure Investment and Challenges in Northeastern Brazil
Chris Cote and Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D. August, 2013
Since 2002, the Northeast region of Brazil has outpaced national economic growth. The Northeast’s economic performance is expected to continue to outpace the national average during the coming years, but the pace and scope of economic development will increasingly be dependent upon the successful planning and completion of a growing number of infrastructure projects.
The Northeast’s future growth and poverty rate will in large measure be determined initially by the public sector’s financing and coordination of infrastructure projects, but future success will also depend on growing investments from the private sector, including foreign
direct investment, to close the infrastructure deficit and increase the productivity of the poorest segments of the workforce. This BrazilWorks briefing paper provides a partial, exploratory analysis of infrastructure in the Northeast to further an understanding of the region and contribute to the policy debate.
Read the entire briefing here: Infrastructure and Investment and Challenges in Northeastern Brazil
The Brazilian Capital Goods Market: Recent Development and Future Prospects
Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., April 2013
Brazil is undergoing a rapid transformation from inward oriented national development to a fully globalized political economy whose government is quickly learning how to craft public policies to guarantee economic stability, growth, and an ever increasing list of private sector opportunities. Brazil still faces significant challenges, including stagflation (slow growth with inflation), but the current governing coalition is committed to a sustainable set of heterodox measures to further liberalize the economy while providing significant public investment, especially in energy and infrastructure, to insure continued growth in the coming years. This favorable scenario provides ample opportunities for United States headquartered capital goods manufacturers to increase exports to Brazil, increase investments in Brazilian manufacturing, and deepen and develop strategic partnerships with Brazilian firms and producer associations. These opportunities come with significant challenges; therefore U.S. firms and investors must carefully identify and assess an expanding list of opportunities as well as a resilient set of institutional obstacles, weighing present market conditions with sensible forecasts of future possibilities.
Read the entire briefing here: The Brazilian Capital Goods Market
Summary and Translation by Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., October 2012
This briefing paper provides a translated summary of Instituto Acende Brasil’s published paper on the Myths and Preconceptions about the Construction of the Belo Monte hydroelectric plant in the state of Pará in Brazil, authored by Claudio J.D. Sales on July 3, 2012. This paper does not represent the work of theInstituto Acende Brasil, but BrazilWorks certainly encourages readers to visit the institute’s website.
Myths and Preconceptions concisely presents the developmental context surrounding the controversial Belo Monte dam project and suggests that all the “noise” surrounding the project distracts attention away from basic facts concerning Brazil’s growing need for electricity and the viable and available options to effectively respond to this mounting demand.
Read the entire summary here: Myths and Preconceptions about Belo Monte
Brazil’s Health Care System: Towards Reform?
Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., August 2012
Brazil’s healthcare system is composed of a complex network of providers, clients and patients, vendors, private sector enterprises that produce and distribute goods and services, and a set of governmental institutions that shape the evolution of the national system. These market actors are unevenly coordinated, lowering the overall efficiency of the system and creating a fundamental political tension between the public and private sector sides of the market. The national system has three subsystems that interact and overlap across medical education and research, primary and second care, diagnostics and treatment, including: 1) the public system, the Sistema Único de Saude (SUS), which is coordinated at the federal government level but administered through overlapping municipal, state, and federal government authorities; 2) the private sector subsystem (both for profit and non- profit financed through a diverse set of private and public resources; and 3) the growing market of private health insurance plans that link and coordinate between healthcare and medical services providers and clients/patients. These subsystems and their distinct components overlap across numerous points within the broader marketplace for health and medical services depending on provider and form of payment.
Read the entire briefing paper here: Brazil’s Healthcare System: Toward Reform?
BrazilWorks’ Guide and Key Recommendations for Doing Business in Brazil
Mark S. Langevin, Ph.D., April 2012
Most firms need to grow to maintain market share and take advantage of greater economies of scale. For this reason, many enterprises and organizations headquartered in the United States are now engaging in efforts to take advantage of the world’s sixth largest national economy, Brazil. BrazilWorks offers “Doing Business in Brazil: Key Recommendations” to assist these efforts.
Read the entire briefing here: Doing Business in Brazil
