BRAZIL GOV'T TO CONTROL CHOICE OIL ASSETS, HOLDS BACK DIVIDENDS

From today's Times:

Faced with the world’s most important oil discovery in years, the Brazilian government is seeking to step back from more than a decade of close cooperation with foreign oil companies and more directly control the extraction itself.

Question: Who could possibly have seen this coming?
Answer: Anybody who read my May posts. Or who knows the first thing about Brazilian history.

This month, Brazil’s government said it wanted the national oil company, Petrobras, to control all future development of the deep-sea fields discovered in 2007, which international geologists estimate could hold tens of billions of barrels of recoverable oil.

The change would make Petrobras the operator for the 62 percent of the new area that has yet to be bid out, consigning foreign companies to the role of financial investors. That would limit their ability to help set the pace for the oil fields’ development, while giving Petrobras significantly more power to generate jobs and award lucrative contracts.

And there's this, too, from today's Bloomberg:

Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA, Latin America’s largest utility, is delaying a 10 billion real ($5.4 billion) dividend as it negotiates timing of the payment with Brazil’s government, its biggest shareholder.

The Rio de Janeiro-based company held back the dividends, which date as far back as the 1970s, to invest in projects such as the construction of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam along the border with Paraguay. Each voting share is expected to receive 10 reais in dividends.

“To pay all the dividends, we still need money from the government,” Chief Financial Officer Astrogildo Quental said in an Aug. 14 interview from Rio de Janeiro. “We’re in talks with the Treasury to find a solution.”

The delay underscores the risks for shareholders in state- run companies, said Edison Garcia, superintendent of Brazil’s Minority Shareholders Association, which represents investors with about 300 billion reais in assets. Nine of the 58 companies in the Bovespa stock index are controlled by the federal or local governments. Among them are Petroleo Brasileiro SA, Cia. Energetica de Minas Gerais and Banco do Brasil SA.

“This situation creates an environment of legal doubt for people investing in Brazilian state-controlled companies,” Garcia said. “The Brazilian Treasury must find a way to pay its obligations.”

Why is it I'm not exactly surprised here?