Brazil oil firm pushes far past local rivals

Petrobras, a company that once bartered chickens for imported oil, used to focus solely on guaranteeing the supply of fuel for Brazil, Latin America’s biggest economy, with 180 million people. But innovative offshore drilling techniques and an aggressive plan to diversify have enabled the company to shift its focus from production at home to becoming a player on the global energy market and a major foreign investor.

Once largely unknown outside South America, Petrobras has swiftly expanded abroad over the past decade, investing in 18 different countries on three continents. At a time when many oil companies are holding steady on new production and stockpiling the windfalls of record-high prices, Petrobras is investing aggressively in new capacity and using its offshore drilling savvy to start producing in once-remote seabeds as far afield as the United States, Angola, Tanzania, Turkey and India.
International Herald Tribune