Data stolen from Petrobras

The Brazilian news are all talking about the report of data being stolen from Petrobras, the Brazilian Oil Company that is growing a lot based on recent oil reserves discoveries near the Brazilian coast.The problem is that the data stolen is technical information related to those discoveries, and it was under custody of Halliburton. In fact, hard disks and laptops were stolen from a Halliburton container being transported to one of Petrobras prospection bases.One thing that is being discussed is a possible conflict of interests on Halliburton working as a Petrobras service provider. Halliburton is constantly accused of doing lots of things (specially by Michael Moore), so the news immediately caught the eyes of lots of people.  Prospecting oil is a Petrobras monopoly in Brazil, and there is a business model where the company hires partners to work on specific spots. The information about the potential of those spots is probably very valuable to those companies with intention to participate on the auctions where those partners are chosen.