Obama Underwrites Offshore Drilling
You read that headline correctly. Unfortunately, the Obama Administration is financing oil exploration off Brazil.
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.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203863204574346610120524166.html
While there are no un-truths in the WSJ article you linked to. it is incomplete and inaccurate.
For their first round of financing covering 2009-2013 Petrobras needed about 30 billion and then they would need more subsequently.
The Brazil Development Bank came in at $14.5 billion, a group of international banks came in with $5.5 billion and finally the China Development Bank with $10 billion. For the $30 billion total thru 2013.
After China comes in, the US has to get in with an equal amount, but the $30 billion has already been raised.
So NSA Jones tells them that the US is in for $10 billion, and please take the this $2 billion now, even though you don't need it, as a commitment of the total $10 billion, which also allows the US to get in on the ground floor.