Oil, Resource Nationalism, and International Relations: A Brazilian Dilemma

Brazilian oil industry developed in the mid-20th century. The founding of a nationalized company, Petrobras, in 1953, has usually been perceived as a symbol of nationalism, typical of the Vargas Era. The government monopoly significantly shaped the oil sector in the country. It also had enormous social and cultural impact on society, as Brazilians for many generations have been encouraged to take pride in the state-led oil enterprise as an achievement of the nation.

This nationalist version of Brazilian oil history, however, leaves out the dynamic international relations in which government agencies engaged on their search for the resource. International influence and foreign presence in the industry have been substantial from its inception, creating a tension between nationalist rhetoric and the need to procure adequate technology. This paper aims to produce a more complete account of the beginning of the national oil industry, which in Brazil occurred predominantly through the national state and its technical staff, with the aid of many foreign professionals and companies.

Here, it is also vital to consider the material realities of oil. It was because of Brazil’s ‘difficult’ geology and the technological challenges that stemmed from the search for oil-bearing formations in national territory that the government was pushed into international collaboration. The complexities of the relations between politics, nationalism, industrialization, and a technical approach to the natural world are at the heart of the network of international relations produced by the search. All these spheres converge in the interactions of the Brazilian State with its natural resources and with other nations, in the attempt to fully explore the national potential for oil production.