Buy Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR)

Petrobras isn’t just discovering a lot of oil and natural gas. It’s discovering them in really tough geologies and then drilling for them in really challenging environments. That combination shows Petroleo Brasileiro’s emergence as an oil company with cutting edge technology and that makes the Brazilian oil giant a very attractive partner for national oil companies that don’t want any piece of the Western oil majors as partners. Two 2007 discoveries, the Jupiter and Tupi oil and gas fields, exemplify the company’s new stature. Either of these fields alone would be the biggest find since the 2000 discovery of the giant Kashagan oil field in Kazakhstan. But getting to that oil will be a huge challenge as it lies under 4.5 miles of ocean water and below that as much as another 17,000 feet of sand, rock and salt.