Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Oil and Gas Secrets Theft in Brazil

This topic has appeared in the Economist the last several weeks. Most recently as "Whodunnit?" in Feb 23rd issue.

Following Petrobras' recent announcements that they had discovered vast new oil and gas discoveries in the deep waters off their Rio di Janeiro coast . . . .

Four laptops and two hard disks were reported stolen from a contianer ship while traveling at sea. Apparently the stolen material consisted of test results obtained for Petrobras by Haliburton for their new deep gas field. The cost for such a field is unknown, and the technology to develop it, unproven. But it must have been interesting to someone!

The most interesting question however would be; why was commercially sensitive material being transported in containers on a ship? and; how the theives knew exactly where to look (i.e. which container on the ship, which disks and laptops). This incident is 'being investigated' and Brasilian President Lula da Silva has commented on the apperance of industrial espionage!

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