Brazil has joined Canada and Russia in openly declaring it is beefing up its military to protect offshore energy reserves. The Brazilians have taken it one step further -- they are in the process of acquiring the technology from France to build a nuclear-powered submarine. In an address to Brazilian lawmakers recently, Defense Minister Nelson Jobim said the county would use its nuclear submarine to defend its natural resources when it is built. He also told the lawmakers the nation is adding up to 50 warships to its fleet. And, Jobim said the nation is filing a claim with the United Nations to extend its territorial waters from the currently recognized 250-mile zone to 350 miles. Included in that list are 27 new ocean-going patrol boats that will be tasked with defending the oilfields. Two of these vessels have already been delivered and five more are on order. They are joining the Canadians who have started a multi-billion dollar building plan for a Northern Fleet to patrol the Northwest Passage. The Russians recently said they would be staging some of the largest wargames their nation has held since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the Arctic region with one purpose--to seize and hold the energy-rich frontier region. It's not known if the current situation in Georgia will delay their plans. For the Brazilians, their eyes are on a development of a field discovered by Petrobras that could hold as much as 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil. If event he conservative estimates are correct, this would be one of the largest energy discoveries in the past 20 years. To show they really mean business, the Brazilian armed forces will hold Operation Atlantic from Sept. 12-26. This wargame will including 20 surface warships, several conventional submarines, 9,000 ground troops and up to 50 aircraft. The cost of this little show-and-tell: $12.3 million. Stay tuned. More to come. As the cost of oil and gas continues to stay fairly high, even counting on the current drop in oil prices, expect more nations to use the military option to defend their natural resources. –John A. Sullivan, News Editor, Oil and Gas Investor, www.OilandGasInvestor.com, jsullivan@hartenergy.com
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