Aircraft carrier Sao Paulo with the Sugar Loaf hill on the background, in Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro (AFP, BRAZILIAN NAVY)
Posted on 11/30/2011 4:53:47 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Brazil boosts naval power to protect oil bonanza
SAO PAULO — As it bids for great power status, Brazil is boosting its naval power in the South Atlantic with an ambitious submarine program to protect its huge deep-water oil reserves and project its growing influence.
The emerging powerhouse already boasts Latin America's largest navy, but its aging fleet, including the Sao Paulo aircraft carrier -- formerly the French Navy's Foch -- nine British-built frigates and five coastal diesel-electric submarines, is in urgent need of modernization.
"The fleet is currently inadequate to carry out its assigned missions" in the South Atlantic, an area Brasilia regards as of high strategic value, Nelson During, chief editor of Brazil's respected defense website DefesaNet, told AFP.
Under the National Defense Strategy unveiled in 2008, the navy was tasked with developing a force to protect the country's huge "sub-salt" oil reserves, the Amazon river basin and its 7,491 kilometers (4,655 miles) of coastline.
The oil fields, located off Brazil's southeast Atlantic coast beneath kilometers of ocean and bedrock, could contain more than 100 billion barrels of high-quality recoverable oil, according to official estimates.
In a speech to the Navy's top brass in June, President Dilma Rousseff stressed that the buildup, including the acquisition of the country's first nuclear-powered submarine, was a key "instrument of deterrence."
Earlier this month admiral Luiz Umberto de Mendonca told a congressional panel that some $117 billion would be needed by 2030 to fund the buildup, including the acquisition of 20 conventional submarines, six nuclear-powered ones and the creation of a second
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Aircraft carrier Sao Paulo with the Sugar Loaf hill on the background, in Guanabara bay in Rio de Janeiro (AFP, BRAZILIAN NAVY)
Who would hassle the big dog?
Brazil is the fifth largest country on earth!!
A sneak attack from Uruguay?
Sappers from Guiana?
My father in law was a CPO in the Brazilian Navy. In other words, a paid vacation at sea.
Somali Pirates!
How about Venezuela on their northern border?
Amazing to see a government make rational defense decisions in it’s country’s own self-interest, isn’t it?
Hugo and Lula, same mother different brothers!
One of the samba schools had a flock of that type!
Better to look at the real girls.
What's to sweat, 0bama would pay all ransom requests. Yes there may be some lost production, that would also be covered.
Long history of war with Uruguay. Even Peru.
Prior to 1890 the Brazilian navy was bigger and better equipped than the U.S. Navy.
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