Brazil and Venezuela finalized a deal to jointly build and operate an oil refinery in Brazil on Friday as the nations’ leaders signed 15 agreements pledging cooperation in agriculture, energy and technology.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA will hold a 60 percent stake in the new refinery company, and Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) will control the rest, according to a statement from Petrobras, as the Brazilian state-run company is known.
The agreements were signed after Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva rode a tractor together at a soybean farm, pledging to boost trade, which totaled US$5.7 billion last year.
PHOTO: AFP
Silva called the agreements a powerful example of South American integration.
He said the two countries and South America as a whole are becoming liberated “from our own blindness; We’ve spent a lot of time without seeing each other, without discovering our potential in politics, culture and trade.”
The two nations have been working since 2005 to finalize the deal; one stumbling block had been a disagreement over the price of Venezuelan oil to supply the refinery. Last year, Petrobras began building the refinery without Venezuela’s help.
The refinery will be capable of processing 230,000 barrels of heavy crude per day and will mainly produce diesel. Petrobras says each company is to supply equal amounts of crude to the refinery, which is projected to cost US$12 billion, up from an initial estimate of US$4 billion.
Meanwhile, PDVSA has agreed to buy nearly half of the government-owned Dominican Oil Refinery (REFIDOMSA) for US$131.5 million, the Dominican Republic’s finance minister said.
Talks to sell 49 percent of the refinery shares concluded late on Thursday after negotiations with a senior Petroleos de Venezuela official, Dominican Republic Finance Secretary Vicente Bengoa said.
“With a partner ... like Venezuela, the refinery over the next years will considerably increase its production and sales,” Bengoa said.
PDVSA official Amilcar Mata said both sides were still working out the final details of the plan, which will be finalized at a ceremony in early this month.
TECH BOOST: New TSMC wafer fabs in Arizona are to dramatically improve US advanced chip production, a report by market research firm TrendForce said With Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) pouring large funds into Arizona, the US is expected to see an improvement in its status to become the second-largest maker of advanced semiconductors in 2027, Taipei-based market researcher TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) said in a report last week. TrendForce estimates the US would account for a 21 percent share in the global advanced integrated circuit (IC) production market by 2027, sharply up from the current 9 percent, as TSMC is investing US$65 billion to build three wafer fabs in Arizona, the report said. TrendForce defined the advanced chipmaking processes as the 7-nanometer process or more
Who would not want a social media audience that grows without new content? During the three years she paused production of her short do-it-yourself (DIY) farmer’s lifestyle videos, Chinese vlogger Li Ziqi (李子柒), 34, has seen her YouTube subscribers increase to 20.2 million from about 14 million. While YouTube is banned in China, her fan base there — although not the size of YouTube’s MrBeast, who has 330 million subscribers — is close to 100 million across the country’s social media platforms Douyin (抖音), Sina Weibo (新浪微博) and Xiaohongshu (小紅書). When Li finally released new videos last week — ending what has
OPEN SCIENCE: International collaboration on math and science will persevere even if the incoming Trump administration imposes strict controls, Nvidia’s CEO said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said on Saturday that global cooperation in technology would continue even if the incoming US administration imposes stricter export controls on advanced computing products. US president-elect Donald Trump, in his first term in office, imposed restrictions on the sale of US technology to China citing national security — a policy continued under US President Joe Biden. The curbs forced Nvidia, the world’s leading maker of chips used for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, to change its product lineup in China. The US chipmaking giant last week reported record-high quarterly revenue on the back of strong AI chip
Qualcomm Inc’s interest in pursuing an acquisition of Intel Corp has cooled, people familiar with the matter said, upending what would have likely been one of the largest technology deals of all time. The complexities associated with acquiring all of Intel has made a deal less attractive to Qualcomm, said some of the people, asking not to be identified discussing confidential matters. It is always possible Qualcomm looks at pieces of Intel instead or rekindles its interest later, they added. Representatives for Qualcomm and Intel declined to comment. Qualcomm made a preliminary approach to Intel on a possible takeover, Bloomberg News and other media
RSS