oil money

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/11/08/brazil.oil.ap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

Two things popped out of interest in this one. One, why are other countries continuing to pursue oil reserves and development when the country most dependent on oil is not, even off its coast where a country several thousand miles away is drilling. Very strange energy policy on our part. And two was the 2nd to last paragraph. It's a gem.

"If the best-case scenario happens, this discovery would make Petrobras' reserves overcome those of Shell and Chevron and put Petrobras behind only Exxon and British Petroleum,"

Notice how the company is described. Look again. Yes, there's no mention of country. Sure BP has British in there but 1) Britain is an island, not a country and 2) BP is everywhere. Multi-national corporations are entities in and of themselves. Especially energy companies. The idea that each company has reserves rather than countries possessing oil reserves in the ground or sea around their territory is apparently not a conscious development for our leaders or even media.
Elsewhere in the story the oil reserves were to be auctioned off in parcels for development and continued exploration. This was the only mention of the government's involvement. Government ownership of land is really the only way the government itself profits from the energy markets without internal taxation on the oil and gasoline itself. They can't very well tax what they send overseas. That money goes to the corporation. Which technically is taxed, but in reality, not so much. Some money is gathered by the government but the money is recouped by raising prices on consumers. So I guess the government gets its money but we get screwed. Good idea there.