Brazil finds massive oil field

30 October 2010 Last updated at 17:34 GMT

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Outgoing president Lula says oil will help Brazil eradicate poverty

A newly-tapped oil field off the coast of Brazil could contain up to 15 billion barrels of oil, officials say.

Brazil's national petroleum agency said the Libra field most probably held around 8 billion barrels.

That matches the size of the giant Tupi oil field, whose discovery in 2007 drew attention to Brazil's potential as a major oil producer.

If the 15 billion barrel figure were confirmed it would double Brazil's known oil reserves.

It would also be the biggest oil field discovered in the Americas since 1976, when Mexico found the giant Cantarell field in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Libra exploratory well is located 183km (114 miles) offshore from Rio de Janeiro.

"The volume of recoverable oil belonging to the nation could vary from 3.7 billion to 15 billion barrels, with the most likely estimate being 7.9 billion barrels," the national petroleum agency (ANP) said in a statement.

Brazil has discovered billions of barrels of oil in the last few years, mostly in deep, pre salt fields off its south-eastern coast.

The discoveries should make Brazil one of the world's top 10 oil producers.

Outgoing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said future oil revenues will be used to eradicate poverty and invest in education and technology.

In September the Brazilian oil company Petrobras, which is partly owned by the state, raised $70bn (£44.7bn) to develop the new fields in the world's largest ever public share offering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11659582

Brazil's real estate market beckons investors

Rich resources and a growing economy make buying property in the South American country attractive for people in the Gulf

• By Nicole Walter, Senior Reporter
• October 22, 2010

• Rio de Janeiro. The middle-income class can afford homes of $100,000 to $300,000 and these are being snapped up in Rio de Janeiro.
• Image Credit: Getty Images

Dubai:  The World Cup 2014 and the Olympics 2016 may seem far away but GCC investors recognise that now is the time to get into the country's real estate sector.

"The country is very high on our agenda for investments," said Rakesh Patnaik, executive director real estate, TFI, subsidiary of Barwa Bank Qatar.

"As GCC investors we see the World Cup and Olympics as very positive for value creation, which starts now and can only go up until the events take place," he added.

Brazil has a strong case besides the major events taking place in its country. As Patnaik said, out of every $10 (Dh36.7) of foreign direct investment (FDI) into Latin America, $8 flows into Brazil.

The country's size, rich natural resources, and varied economy have made it a major player on the global scene. Coupled with political stability and a clear economic policy, which has succeeded in lifting many into the middle and upper-middle class, the country looks like a low risk investment as well.

Presidential elections are in full swing, but André Gutierrez Pereira, head of urban development, technical advisory, Sao Paulo City Hall denied any notions they could imply change for investors.

"The laws, such as for the financial market, have been stable for the last 15 years. Whoever wins is likely to implement the same policies as they have proven successful over the last couple of years," he said.

Investor sentiment

Paulo Gomes, chief strategy officer, Pramerica Real Estate Investors Latin America confirmed the sentiment as an investor. "These are major elections but different from other times. The outcome this time will be almost a non-event for the financial markets. There may be a slight change in policies but nothing major," he said.

The seeds for a sustainable property sector have been sown. "The President has helped a lot of low income earners to move into the high income bracket, and they want new homes and a new life, so a lot of housing is needed," Cecilia Reinaldo, managing director, Fine & Country, Middle East, told Gulf News.

The middle-income class can afford homes of $100,000 to $300,000 and these are being snapped up in Rio de Janeiro, for example. It isn't about flipping property but a stable rental income.

"We're focusing on projects around the Olympic Games. Most of the off-plan properties in Downtown Rio are sold out as the local demand is very real. In Dubai we're offering more of an education as there is a lot of curiosity about buying property in Brazil. We have quite a few clients based in the DIFC," said Reinaldo.

A two-bedroom apartment close to the Olympic Village and beach starts at $170,000 and can yield yearly rental returns of 12 to 15 per cent. "We deal with local developers in Rio de Janeiro. An investment offered needs to be sensible, some foreign developers promise up to 200 per cent returns and that is simply not real," Reinaldo said.

The government keeps an eye on property ownership. In Brazil one needs to have the National Taxpayer Registration (CPF) number, the main citizen identification document in Brazil to buy and own.

"You can get a CPF number as a foreigner. It assures sustainability on the legal side. One can't just run away with the money, but the consumer is protected. Equally any reservation form issued by a developer is a 10 page document explaining all the details of the property," Reinaldo added.

Larger scale

Real estate investments on a larger scale can be found in Sao Paulo, the country's financial centre, a significant research and development as well as major logistic hub for South America. And with 22 million people contributing 30 per cent to Brazil's GDP living in this mammoth city the demand for real estate is constantly rising.

"Urban growth is a big challenge for us, all the jobs are in the downtown area causing traffic jams with thousands of people commuting daily from the suburbs," said Gutierrez Pereira.

We got rid of most of the slums but there are social problems in the suburbs, where we plan to provide jobs and transport and at the same time we have to conserve the greenbelt of the city, he added. "The trick to lure investors into these areas is dishing out fiscal incentives," he added.

As far as other major centres in Brazil are concerned, Gutierrez Pereira said, in particular the middle and south of the country needed more retail and hospitality offerings.

"We're very much interested in what's happening in all major cities, there are two dozens of them in Brazil. We take a long-term view and participate in all segments of real estate from industrial to housing," said Gomes. Reinaldo warns that although Brazil is ticking all the boxes, such as expectations that economic growth will continue, nothing in life is forever.

Foreigners

"One needs to be able to get out and I fear projects, like land plots sold in the north-east by foreigners could suffer," she said.

Patnaik sees his exit strategy in Sao Paulo's stock exchange. "We invest in US dollars and the exchange rate with the Brazilian real is very positive. The currency is good for an exit strategy. The country has a very active stock market and that creates opportunities to exit via a listing strategy."

Although Brazil's strong FDI certainly helps, Gomes pointed to the growing internal consumer base and active investor strength, strong pension funds, retail and stock markets.

"All of that helps exits in the real estate market whether malls, offices the exit strategy is clear," he said.

http://gulfnews.com/business/property/international/brazil-39-s-real-estate-market-beckons-investors-1.700092

Brazil's real estate boom

By Erik German

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — After weathering a stark downturn at home, London real estate investor Ruban Selvanayagam packed up two years ago and headed to Brazil.

The stunning tropical beaches and wild samba scene weren’t the only attractions on his mind.

“The housing market is booming here,” said Selvanayagam, 31, who now operates a property investment business in both Rio de Janeiro and London. “Prices have just gone through the roof.”

The economy here is growing briskly. A burgeoning middle class is scrambling for homes, and banks are handing out mortgages at an unprecedented rate. While property markets in the United States and Europe may be suffering one of the worst slumps in history, some experts say there’s a real estate bonanza afoot in emerging markets such as Brazil.

One advantage countries like Brazil enjoy: they’ve largely sidestepped the surge of bad loans that left America awash in foreclosures and toxic debt.

“They have their fiscal houses in order better than a lot of Western countries,” said David Lynn, a New York City real estate investor and author of the forthcoming book "Emerging Market Real Estate Investment." “They took their medicine and I think it’s been paying dividends.”

Lynn said the most obvious places to buy property are in the emerging giants that are already magnets for foreign cash: China, Brazil andIndia. By the World Bank’s respective count, these countries boast the planet’s third-, eighth- and eleventh-biggest economies. Buying property there tends to be a good bet, Lynn said, because these three giants are growing more steadily than the United States and they’re not going to stop anytime soon.

“Real estate is a very simple business,” he said. “If the economy is growing, the real estate market is going to benefit.”

But there’s also a constellation of less obvious countries Lynn said smart property buyers ought to mull over: Turkey, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and even — despite the rising tide of drug violence there — Mexico.

“There’s a whole range of countries in that second tier that I’d either consider or make selective investments in,” Lynn said. “ They have a lot of good things going for them. It’s never going to be everything going for them, like Mexico — the murders, the drug problems — but it’s risk-adjusted. You get a lot higher return for that risk and it could be a really good thing. Particularly when other investors seem to be scared.”

There are limits, however. Russia is conspicuously missing from Lynn’s list. “I don’t want that risk, the political risk, the personal safety risk,” he said. “And also it’s not growing.”

Brazil’s real estate market, on the other hand, is growing fast. In the past 8 years, more than 20 million Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty and they’ve arrived in a market that, by Lynn’s estimate, currently has about 6 million fewer housing units than it needs.

The Brazilian banking institution Caixa Economica Federal said this year it expects mortgage lending to jump to $42 billion in 2010, up from $28 billion last year.

That surge may be just the beginning. At the end of 2008, mortgage lending represented just 3 percent of Brazil’s GDP, Lynn writes, compared with more than 84 percent in Britain and the United States.

The effect of the rising demand can be seen all over Rio de Janeiro, said Fabricio Negri, an independent real estate broker here.

“Some neighborhoods in Rio have doubled in price,” he said. “Things are really crazy now.”

Negri says change in the last five years ago is palpable. Where only a handful of people used to turn up for an open house, now 20 are coming and more than half of them put in their paperwork to vie for the place.

“It’s an extreme shift,” Negri said, adding that the rental market is seeing a similar boom. “You have some parts of the city where you don’t even have to put out an advertisement for a property because after just one or two calls, you get a person to rent it.”

All of which makes Selvanayagam believe his decision to leave London for Rio was a wise one. “People are saying Brazil is like the United States in the 1950s,” he said. “There’s a huge amount of growth space over the next few years because the property market has so much untapped potential.”

http://www.minnpost.com/globalpost/2010/10/19/22466/brazils_real_estate_boom

Olimpíada e UPPs inflacionam preços nos bairros do Rio de Janeiro

Investimentos em infraestrutura e segurança valorizam imóveis por toda a cidade

Sérgio Vieira, do R7 | 18/10/2010 às 06h01

Boom imobiliário atinge toda a cidade, segundo especialistas

Os efeitos do anúncio de uma Olimpíada no mercado imobiliário de uma cidade são sempre expressivos, mas a realidade do Rio de Janeiro, sede dos Jogos de 2016, é ainda mais marcante. A cidade vive um boom no setor por concentrar em um curto período o foco dos investidores em diferentes ângulos. Como exemplo há as melhorias em infraestrutura (transporte, rede hoteleira, indústria etc), também por causa da Copa do Mundo de 2014; as perspectivas de crescimento econômico originadas com os ganhos do pré-sal; e, ainda, a implantação das UPPs (Unidades de Polícia Pacificadora), já que alguns bairros da cidade estão se beneficiando com redução da violência. No geral, segundo especialistas, os terrenos e imóveis - que já não eram baratos - valorizaram-se em todos os bairros da cidade.

Um levantamento realizado pelo R7 confirma os dados e mostra que o superaquecimento não dá sinais de redução, pelo menos nos próximos meses. Para alugar ou comprar imóveis no Rio é preciso desembolsar até 112% a mais na comparação, nos últimos 12 meses, com bairros de alto nível, por exemplo, da cidade de São Paulo, de acordo com os dados da CBIC (Câmara Brasileira da Indústria da Construção).

Para Leonardo Schneider, vice-presidente do Secovi Rio (sindicato de habitação), "tanto a Copa quanto a Olimpíada estão colaborando para aumentar os valores dos imóveis em toda a cidade, em especial nas regiões que já possuem excelente infraestrutura ou que serão beneficiadas com novos investimentos".

Segundo pesquisa da consultoria inglesa Jones Lang LaSalle, o Rio está na mesma fase que Barcelona (Espanha) e Atenas (Grécia) estavam quando sofreram um boom imobiliário nos anos anteriores à Olimpíada, o que não ocorreu com cidades como Atlanta (EUA) e Sidney (Austrália), que já eram bastante organizadas.

Os Jogos Olímpicos de 2016 vão revitalizar por completo toda a região da zona portuária (que será transformada em área de lazer) e o trânsito deve ficar mais organizado com a criação do corredor T5 (via de ônibus expresso que ligará a zona norte à Barra da Tijuca, na zona oeste). Além disso, a construção da linha quatro do metrô, que ligará a zona sul à Barra da Tijuca, colabora para dar gás novo para o mercado imobiliário de Ipanema à Barra.

Ainda de acordo com Schneider, além dos eventos esportivos, os programas de incentivo ao crédito, com prazos e valores maiores a juros menores, também contribuem para elevar a procura por imóveis na capital fluminense.

Já para Antônio Paulo Monnerat, vice-presidente de locações do Secovi Rio, o aumento da segurança em muitos bairros (Flamengo, Copacabana, Tijuca e arredores) é o que reflete a alta dos preços verificada nos últimos 12 meses.

- A valorização vem ocorrendo por conta da consolidação do projeto das UPPs em comunidades da zona sul e do aumento da demanda, que vem acompanhado de oferta ainda tímida. Desde o anúncio da criação das UPPs, o mercado imobiliário da Tijuca e arredores tem se tornado mais atraente. Pesquisa do Secovi Rio revelou que houve alta de até 148,89% nos valores dos aluguéis e de 59,41% nos preços para venda em bairros beneficiados por UPPs na zona sul.

No ranking geral, de acordo com o Secovi Rio, os bairros mais caros do Rio de Janeiro, em outubro de 2010, são Leblon, Ipanema, Lagoa, Gávea, Jardim Botânico, Copacabana, Arpoador, Botafogo, Flamengo, Laranjeiras, todos na zona sul, e Barra da Tijuca, na zona oeste. Veja abaixo mais informações sobre cada um.

Leblon e Ipanema

No topo do ranking, o metro quadrado mais caro no Rio de Janeiro se localiza no Leblon, com custo médio de R$ 11.964. Em segundo lugar está Ipanema, que possui valor médio de R$ 11.392. Se considerarmos os bairros vizinhos ao Leblon (Ipanema e Arpoador), o valor do metro quadrado pode ficar perto de R$ 18.000.

No entanto, está na avenida Vieira Souto (Ipanema) o imóvel com valor mais alto encontrado: R$ 19.683 o metro quadrado, segundo levantamento do Creci (Conselho Regional dos Corretores de Imóveis do Rio de Janeiro).

No Leblon, há oito anos, havia imóveis por R$ 500 mil, mas atualmente é muito raro encontrar qualquer apartamento por menos de R$ 1 milhão. Os preços do aluguel de um apartamento de um quarto no Leblon, no período de um ano, entre setembro de 2009 e setembro de 2010, aumentaram mais de 102%.

O alto valor pedido para os imóveis situados na orla das avenidas Vieira Souto e Delfim Moreira (Leblon) refletem a falta de novos terrenos para construção e a alta procura, na análise de Antônio Paulo Monnerat, vice-presidente de locações do Secovi Rio.

- No Leblon, além das poucas construções, a demanda é enorme. O bairro ainda é sonho de consumo de muitas pessoas que melhoraram a renda.

Lagoa, Gávea e Jardim Botânico

A tranquilidade e a qualidade de vida da Lagoa valem R$ 14.956 o metro quadrado na região mais valorizada, mas, de acordo com o Secovi Rio, o custo médio fica em R$ 9.101 o metro quadrado. O bairro carioca, às margens da lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, tem o maior IDH (Índice de Desenvolvimento Urbano) da cidade e concentra uma população bastante homogênea, de alto poder aquisitivo e imóveis que variam de R$ 700 mil a coberturas de R$ 3 milhões.

Ao lado, a Gávea e o Jardim Botânico também não deixam a desejar. O preço médio na região fica em R$ 11.798 (com valor médio de R$ 7.790) e R$ 10.559 (com valor médio de R$ 7.599), respectivamente. Além dos três bairros acima estarem aos pés do Cristo Redentor, o Jardim Botânico e a Gávea atraem moradores jovens com perfil parecido com o da Lagoa, em busca de ambiente mais calmo, longe da movimentação de outros bairros próximos, como Copacabana.

Copacabana e Arpoador

A famosa Copacabana também observa crescimento bastante acentuado nos valores praticados na região e leva a sexta posição no ranking. O valor do metro quadrado na "Princesinha do Mar" chega a R$ 9.669 nos pontos mais caros, com custo médio de R$ 6.902. Além da bela praia, o bairro é conhecido por apresentar o maior índice de população na terceira idade no mundo.

O Arpoador, que se localiza entre o forte de Copacabana e o começo da praia de Ipanema, tem custo médio de R$ 6.782, mas pode alcançar R$ 8,754 na divisa com a avenida Vieira Souto. A região, que já foi lar dos surfistas, apresenta espaço restrito, com cerca de 500 metros.

Botafogo e Flamengo (com Laranjeiras)

Em seguida, Botafogo aparece no levantamento com preço médio do metro quadrado em R$ 6.475, podendo alcançar R$ 7.213. No bairro, a maior variação no aluguel foi registrada para os apartamentos de quatro quartos, que passou de R$ 2.075 em setembro de 2009 para R$ 4.975 em setembro de 2010, alta de 139,76%.

Segundo Álvaro Spezin, sócio do Portal Imóveis de Luxo, a segurança proporcionada pelas UPPs na região contribuiu para aumentar os preços dos imóveis e nos arredores, com destaque para Flamengo, Laranjeiras e Humaitá.

No Flamengo, o preço médio chega a R$ 6.347, muito próximo do patamar de Laranjeiras, onde o metro quadrado alcança R$ 5.918. O mercado imobiliário destes bairros cresce desde 1979, quando o metrô chegou à região.

O perfil dos habitantes se encontra entre 25 e 36 anos, de classe média e média-alta, com alguns apartamentos de alto-luxo situados na avenida de frente para a orla (praia do Flamengo e avenida Rui Barbosa).

Barra da Tijuca

Apesar do alto status, a Barra da Tijuca conquistou a décima colocação no levantamento entre os bairros mais caros do Rio de Janeiro. O metro quadrado médio fica em R$ 5.518, alcançando R$ 8.457 nos lugares mais caros. A explicação é simples. A região é relativamente nova e ainda possui muitos terrenos para expansão. Desde a década de 1990, a Barra cresceu 44%, segundo dados da Ademi Rio (Associação de Dirigentes de Empresas do Mercado Imobiliário).

A visão oficial

O secretário de desenvolvimento do Instituto Pereira Passos, Felipe Góes, afirmou em evento realizado no Palácio da Cidade, em Botafogo, na zona sul, que o alto preço dos imóveis para alugar ou vender na cidade do Rio de Janeiro não preocupa a prefeitura, ao contrário, é sinal de "desenvolvimento".

- Não me preocupa e nem preocupa a prefeitura que o Rio de Janeiro tenha o metro quadrado mais caro do Brasil. O que nos importa é encontrar terrenos disponíveis para viabilizar novas construções, isso sim é o que nós estamos correndo atrás.

• http://noticias.r7.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticias/editada-olimpiada-e-upps-inflacionam-precos-nos-bairros-do-rio-de-janeiro-20111008.html