Brazil Blocks Belo Monte Dam Operation
A Brazilian federal court has revoked a lower court's injunction that had suspended the operating license for the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam, one of the world's largest, Brazil's Energy Ministry said in a Twitter (TWTR) post on Wednesday.
The ministry said a decision from the federal court in Brasilia lifted the earlier order blocking the beginning of power generation at Belo Monte, which had been planned for the coming weeks.
Belo Monte, a dam built on the Xingu River in the middle of the Amazon forest, will have a total installed capacity of 11,233 megawatts when completed, exceeded only by China's Three Gorges and Brazil's Itaipu dams.
The complex is being built and will be operated by Norte Energia, a consortium led by Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA , or Eletrobras; Companhia Energética de Minas Gerais , or Cemig; Brazil's Neoenergia SA, and miner Vale SA.
The injunction was issued two weeks ago by a local judge in Altamira, a town in Pará state close to the dam. The judge found that the consortium and the Brazilian government failed to meet a previous license requirement to reorganize the regional office of Funai, the national Indian protection agency.
Brazil is counting on the dam, now several years behind schedule, to help fill a shortfall in expected energy deliveries caused by delays in new generation and transmission projects, rising demand and a recent drought.
Reporting by Leonardo Goy
