Latin America is a study in contrast of how countries manage their oil. In Mexico and Venezuela, state and oil industry live in a symbiosis flaunted as resource nationalism – but their state oil companies are looking increasingly like wounded giants. Brazil’s Petrobras, managed with a more open attitude, now overshadows its sisters to the north. This shows that pragmatism, not xenophobia, is a better safeguard of national interests.

Brazil’s oil production rivals that of the region’s largest exporters, but it is still not self-sufficient. Petrobras’s 2007 discovery of the offshore Tupi field will change this. Edson Lopão, Brazil’s oil minister, told the FT this week that it may open a licensing round for Tupi next year.