Brazil will on Wednesday begin reversing what industry officials say was a costly and ultimately disastrous decision a decade ago: setting aside billions of barrels from the Western Hemisphere’s largest oil discovery in 30 years for its state-run oil firm at a time when deep-pocketed foreign companies were clamoring to invest. Brazil removed key acreage from a 2007 auction that could have yielded $100 billion in signing bonuses plus hundreds of billions more in spending commitments when the price of oil was near record highs, according to several former executives at Western oil companies. Now, Brazil may generate just a fraction of what it could have as it looks to […]