A worker rides a fork lift among drums of oil.
#8. Brazil's Big Oil Find
In November, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobas announced the largest oil discovery worldwide since 2000. Though the country is already a self-sufficient oil producer, the new Tupi field — located off the eastern coast of South America, beneath a crust of salt a mile thick in some places—could turn Brazil into a major exporter to rival Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Brazil wasted no time in protecting the area that is expected to produce as much as 8 billion barrels of light crude oil. The day after the Petrobas announcement, the government withdrew 41 exploration blocks in the Tupi region from an auction for private companies.