Obama Funds Pal Soros’ Oil Drilling – at Petrobras

Obama suddenly decides to go drilling for oil – WhaWhere? – in Brazil.

Obama has spread around $2 Billion (don’t get alarmed; your kids are good for it) for funding offshore exploration and drilling (via loans and guarantees) IN BRAZIL; but offshore exploration is banned virtually in offshore North America and in Alaska and in prime fields everywhere in the United States. American corporations and energy developers are SOL; but Petrobras is Obama’s partner. Is this some new kind of cap-and-trade maneuver to raise the cost of energy? Obviously not; and the need to raise energy prices, as professed by Obama, mysteriously does not apply in the unique case of Petrobras. Smell any rats yet?

$2 Billion for Petrobras, George? Just let me know when.

If George Soros adjusted his position for more dividends from Petrobras a few days before Obama’s investment in Big Oil, would that help explain anything?

That’s right. Obama will not permit oil drilling, or oil exploration, in North America, but he has already gifted (guaranteed or loaned) $2 BILLION in cash resources to Petrobras to ***PAY*** for Brazilian offshore exploration – while he won’t even permit such drilling in the US.

And who has jumped back into Petrobras’ dividends with both feet just in the nick of time to benefit maximally from the Obama hand-out?

American energy interests Obama wants to put out of business; but Petrobras clearly rings Obama’s bell.

His New York-based hedge-fund firm, Soros Fund Management LLC, sold 22 million U.S.-listed common shares of Petrobras, as the Brazilian oil company is known, according to a filing today with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Soros bought 5.8 million of the company’s U.S.-traded preferred shares.

Soros is taking advantage of the spread between the two types of U.S.-listed Petrobras shares, said Luis Maizel, president of LM Capital Group LLC, which manages about $4 billion. The common shares were 21 percent more expensive than preferred today, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. …

Petrobras preferred shares have also a 10 percent additional dividend, said William Landers, a senior portfolio manager for Latin America at Blackrock Inc.

“Given that there will most likely never be a change in control in the company, I see no reason to pay a higher price for the common shares.” Brazil’s government controls Petrobras and has a majority stake of voting shares.

Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling – Too bad it’s not in US waters
Wall Street Journal August 18, 2009

The U.S. is going to lend billions of dollars to Brazil’s state-owned oil company, Petrobras, to finance exploration of the huge offshore discovery in Brazil’s Tupi oil field in the Santos Basin near Rio de Janeiro. Brazil’s planning minister confirmed that White House National Security Adviser James Jones met this month with Brazilian officials to talk about the loan.

The U.S. Export-Import Bank tells us it has issued a “preliminary commitment” letter to Petrobras in the amount of $2 billion and has discussed with Brazil the possibility of increasing that amount. Ex-Im Bank says it has not decided whether the money will come in the form of a direct loan or loan guarantees. Either way, this corporate foreign aid may strike some readers as odd, given that the U.S. Treasury seems desperate for cash and Petrobras is one of the largest corporations in the Americas.

. . .

Americans are right to wonder why Mr. Obama is underwriting in Brazil what he won’t allow at home.