Exporting T&T’s expertise: Energy Chamber returns to Brazil

Brazil has one of the world’s largest economies, with well-developed agricultural, mining, manufacturing, and service sectors and can also boast of vast mineral wealth. The Energy Chamber of T&T will be embarking on a second trade mission to Brazil. Brazil represents a huge potential market for T&T service companies. The most obvious thing to strike members of the delegation who took part in this first exploratory visit is the sheer scale of the opportunity in Brazil. The second very obvious thing to strike participants was the domination of Petrobras in both the market and setting the ground rules for involvement in Brazil. Petrobras is now ranked as one of the biggest oil and gas companies in the world and it’s on a continued and rapid growth curve.

 

While Petrobras is run with the profit-motives and business efficiencies of other international operating company, it is still a majority government-owned company. This means that bi-lateral political relations between Brazil and T&T provide an important component of the overall national approach that will be needed to facilitate the entry of T&T companies to Brazil. Currently, the country produces more than 2.5 million bbpd from its pre-salt fields. According to the Energy Informationh Administration, Brazil is the ninth largest energy consumer in the world and the third largest in the Western Hemisphere, behind the United States and Canada. Total primary energy consumption in Brazil has increased by close to a third in the last decade, due to sustained economic growth. In addition, Brazil has made great strides in increasing its total energy production, particularly oil and ethanol. Increasing domestic oil production has been a long-term goal of the Brazilian government, and recent discoveries of large offshore, pre-salt oil deposits could transform Brazil into one of the largest oil producers in the world.

 

Our energy service companies will have to find niche markets within the booming Brazilian oil and gas sector, driven by Petrobas, but given the size of the opportunity, even a niche can be a significant opportunity.  

The chamber has led previous missions going to Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda in East Africa (August 2010) and Ghana (2009 and 2011). In the past four years, the Energy Chamber has also taken missions to Nigeria, Cuba, Guyana and twice to Suriname. Our membership has invested considerable time and money into these missions: as with the recent mission to Brazil, members of the Energy Chamber directly paid for the costs for these missions. The total direct investment made by members of the chamber in outgoing energy service trade missions over the past four years is $4 million.

 

Future trade missions

The Energy Chamber will continue to stress the need to export energy services as a key element of the country’s diversification strategy. The Energy Chamber firmly believes that broadening the scope and reach of T&T’s energy services is one way to ensure the viability and sustainability of an energy-driven economy. One of our strategic directives is for local energy service providers to become net exporters of their expertise to international markets.  For further information on exporting energy services and the Brazil trade mission, contact, Priya Marajh at: [email protected]