Why would Canada spy on Brazil mining and energy officials?

Its likely we will never know exactly what Canadian spies were allegedly doing snooping around in Brazils Ministry of Mining and Energy computers on behalf of the so-called Five Eyes an intelligence alliance between the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

But examining some of the happenings in the South American country's natural resourcesdepartment in the last few years might provide a few clues.

In 2007, Brazil announced it had discovered the largest oil patch to date on its territory.

The Libra Oil Field is estimated to contain between eight billionand 10 billion barrels of oil. That's enough to keep oil platforms busy for 100 years and make it the largest known deposit outside of OPEC countries.

Its a big deal.

Brazil decided its largest energy company Petrobas likely needs help to properly exploit the resource, so it has proceeded with a plan to auction off the rights.

The Department of Mining and Energy is in charge of the auction.

Contract fails to attract many companies

With an oil deposit this large, Brazil was expecting about 40 companies from around the globe to take a shot at landing the contract.

But when registration closed on Sept. 19, only 11 companies had signed up and paid the deposit of 2.1-million real (the Brazilian currency, oralmost $1 million).

The largest of those wereChinese companies including CNOOC and Sinopec and Malaysias Petronas. Canadians may be familiar with these companiesbecause all have made moves to invest in Canada's energy sector in recent years.

What had market analysts scratching their heads when registration closed, though, was the companies that didnt apply: Exxon, Chevron, BP some of the worlds largest petroleum producers took a pass on the project.

Why?

When contacted, the companies saidthey wouldnt publicly discuss their business decision-making process.

So, we are left wondering why not one energy company based in the U.S., U.K., Canada, New Zealand or Australia is participating in an auction for what is billed as the largest oil find in 40 years.

And how they got theinformation on which they based their decision.

We do know that Canadian energy sector stakeholders regularly meet with Canadian government officials to discuss security and threats to the energy infrastructure.

The classified briefings take place every sixmonths at the offices of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and are attended by representatives of many government agencies including CSIS, RCMP and CSEC.

The stated purpose of the meetings is "to discuss national security, criminal intelligence, threat risk assessment and to share energy-related classified intelligence."

One of the briefings' chief organizers has said publicly that the get-togethers also provide an opportunity for energy stakeholders to develop relationships with other participants and have "off the record" conversations with them.

The condition being: they tell no one where they obtained their information.

Read the documents, obtained under Access to Information:

• Natural Resources Canada / NEB email
• NRCAN briefing invitees
• May, 2012 meeting agenda 1
• May, 2012 meeting agenda 2
• May, 2012 meeting agenda 3
• CSIS protocols