The O&G expats WAGs are coming into town!

Non British readers won’t be familiar with the WAG concept.  The WAG term is widely used by the press in the UK to describe the Wives and Girl Friends of (very rich) footballers. Most of them are like their partners, not particularly bright! Anyhow, read the  British tabloids for more on that!

What I have noticed in the last 10 days is that about 90% of the expats I met are linked to the oil and Gas industry. Only for 2 couples was the husband/boyfriend working… in finance.  In my Portuguese school, of the 5 WAGs there,  4 of us have our other-half working in the industry. The last one her BF works in finance (but still for Petrobras!).

So many are arriving that I am tempted to create the O&G Expat WAGs club! (O&G being for oil And Gas !). J

 At the moment there is an enormous influx of expats linked to this industry. Not surprising considering that only yesterday, Petrobras (the Brazilian government owned Oil company) announced that their investment budget for 2011 to 2015 is going to be…. 225 BILLIONS dollars!! (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/petrobras-unveils-225-billion-investment-plan-2011-07-23)

 Now, you should start to understand why pretty much any company linked to the oil industry is sending a representative to Rio.

But why Rio could you ask? Well about 4 years ago, end of 2007, was discovered a massive 800 square kilometre of oil reserve  offshore, not too far off from Rio.  Last year one reserve was found to be the biggest reserve found for decades. Brazil is bound to become one the top 10 exporters of oil. (http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/299602)

However, the investment required to reach the oil (I understand it will be deep drilling!) and bring it to shore will be massive and require a lot of machinery, engineers, expertise, etc ….. Hence why we and so many others are invading Rio!

So there, if you fancy working in Rio and have experience in the Oil and Gas industry, you should be able to be sent here by your company at some point! Start learning Portuguese! ;-)

On another subject we had some good news. The company is finally registered so we can FINALLY start our Visa application! Alistair wants to try for a 5 years Visa straight away (instead of the 2 years one). We will see how that works!  We live in hope ;)

and here few pictures we took this morning in Urca (near famous Sugar Loaf Mountain!)