00:00 Brazil took an important step towards energy sovereignty this week, announcing it will
00:05 restart an important project that was nearly destroyed by Operation Car Wash.
00:09 Our reporter Brian Meyer has more.
00:13 The Brazilian government has announced a $17 billion investment to resume construction
00:17 of a second refinery at the Abreu e Lima plant in Pernambuco, with the goal of increasing
00:22 Brazil's diesel production by 40% and generating 30,000 jobs.
00:27 Construction was halted in 2017 as part of the Michel Temer administration's policy
00:32 of dismantling the national petroleum company Petrobras.
00:36 This dream is only coming true, comrades, because of a lot of fighting.
00:42 It was the workers who held protests, work stoppages and strikes.
00:48 President Lula, in fact, in fact, we held the second largest strike in petroleum workers'
00:54 history in 2020.
00:56 When we occupied Petrobras' headquarters and paralyzed our activities for 21 days,
01:02 during the previous anti-democratic and fascist government.
01:06 In 2017, after a few executives were convicted of corruption as part of the now disgraced
01:12 Operation Car Wash investigation, instead of treating Petrobras as too big to fail,
01:17 which is what countries in the global north do in similar situations, the government began
01:21 dismantling the company.
01:23 Tens of thousands of workers were laid off and Brazil lost its self-sufficiency in energy
01:27 production.
01:28 Consequently, Brazil now imports $11 billion a year in gas and diesel from the United States.
01:36 Everything that happened in this country was caused by collusion between some judges and
01:40 public prosecutors who were subordinated to the Department of Justice of the United States,
01:47 which never accepted the idea of Brazil having a company like Petrobras.
01:55 Profits from the new refinery are expected to fully pay back the investment costs in
01:59 18 months.
02:00 Brian Mier, Tel Assur, Pernambuco.
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