Brazil says offshore find holds high-grade oil

Preliminary drilling has confirmed that an offshore deposit discovered in March contains significant reserves of light crude, Brazilian state oil giant Petrobras said.

"New oil samples were collected at depth of up to 6,131 meters (19,000 feet)," according to a statement from Petrobras, which said the oil has a density of 31 degrees API.

The higher the degree on the 10-50 API scale, the less dense the oil and the more easily it can be refined into fuel.

The Carcara well has "an oil column of over 400 meters, showing reservoirs that are mostly continuous and connected," Petrobras said.

The well is located in the BM-S-8 block of the Santos basin, 230 kilometers (140 miles) off the coast of the southeastern state of Sao Paulo.

BM-S-8 lies within the pre-salt region, so-named because the tens of billions of barrels of reserves it is estimated to hold are located far beneath the ocean floor under a layer of salt as much as two kilometers (1.2 miles) thick.

Petrobras, with a 66 percent stake, is the operator of the BM-S-8 block, while Petrogal Brasil, a subsidiary of Portugal's Galp Energia, has 14 percent, and Brazilian firms Barra Energia do Brasil and Queiroz Galvao each hold 10 percent interests.

The pre-salt fields, which range across roughly 160,000 sq. kilometers (62,000 sq. miles), are estimated to hold between 50-80 billion barrels of crude and could potentially transform Brazil into a major crude exporter. EFE

Norte Energia Suspends Work on Brazil's Belo Monte Dam

SAO PAULO--Following a Brazilian court order to stop construction, the company building the controversial 11,200-megawatt Belo Monte dam said Thursday that it was suspending all work on the project.

Earlier this month, a federal court ruled that the government's authorization of the 26 billion Brazilian reais ($13 billion) dam was unconstitutional. The court threatened to fine Norte Energia, the company in charge of the project, BRL500,000 a day should it continue with construction of the dam on the Xingu River in Para state.

"Norte Energia communicates that, due to a court decision, it is suspending the execution of civil construction on the Belo Monte hydroelectric dam and all other activities directly related to it," the company said in a news release. Norte Energia "is taking all available measures to reverse the decision, with the objective of returning the suspended activities to normality in the shortest time possible."

Because heavy rains impede progress during the southern hemisphere's coming summer months, company executives have said the suspension this month could delay work on the dam by as much as a year, depending on when they are permitted to resume work. The dam is set to go online by 2015, at which point it would be the world's third-largest hydroelectric dam.

In a decision earlier this month, federal judges in Brasilia said the government didn't hold the constitutionally-required meetings with indigenous communities that are affected by the dam before granting permission to build it.

Federal prosecutors in Para have asked courts on numerous occasions to block the dam's construction, alleging that required measures meant to alleviate the impact of the dam haven't been taken. Despite occasional success by the prosecutors, the federal government had managed to overturn all previous injunctions.

Norte Energia is composed of government-controlled utility Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras (EBR, ELET6.BR), or Eletrobras. Other stakeholders include the pension funds of state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR, PETR3.BR) and government lender Caixa Economica, as well as the utilities Neoenergia (GNAN3B.SM) and Cemig (CIG, CMIG4.BR), and mining company Vale (VALE, VALE3.BR). Eletrobras is the biggest shareholder, with a 49.98% stake.

Last month, indigenous leaders held three company engineers captive, saying they would only be released after the company provided means for the natives' boats to circumvent the construction site, which is impeding free travel along the Xingu. The engineers were released after Brazil's national indigenous institute Funai helped work out an agreement.

Write to Paulo Winterstein at paulo.winterstein@dowjones.com

Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras SA : Belo Monte Dam Engineers Released by Brazil Tribal Leaders (Paulo Winterstein)

-Dam workers being held by indigenous groups released Friday morning

-Norte Energia says tribal leaders violated agreement made earlier this month

-Indigenous leaders say dam construction has impeded river access

(Adds Norte Energia comments beginning in third paragraph, and prosecutor comments in fifth and sixth paragraphs.)

By Paulo Winterstein

SAO PAULO--Indigenous leaders in Brazil released on Friday the last of the three engineers working on the controversial $13 billion Belo Monte dam in Brazil's north who had been held hostage since Tuesday, Brazil's national indigenous institute Funai said.

The engineers working for Norte Energia, a consortium of Brazilian companies and pension funds, had been held in a village close to where the 11,233-megawatt dam is being built on the Xingu River. One employee was released Thursday night, and the other two were released Friday morning and were on their way to the nearby city of Altamira, a spokesman for Funai said.

Norte Energia confirmed the release of all three workers, one of whom works directly for Norte Energia and two working for companies contracted by Norte Energia to provide services.

The engineers had been visiting tribal leaders Tuesday to explain measures the company was taking to address problems with navigating the Xingu River. According to Norte Energia, the system that allows boats to circumvent the construction site is set to begin operating in November.

Federal prosecutors in the state of Para, where the dam is being built, met with Funai and company and indigenous leaders on Friday, as part of the agreement by tribal leaders to release the dam employees.

The prosecutors, who said in a statement that progress on required measures to alleviate the dam's impact on the local tribes had "serious deficiencies," asked Funai and environmental agency Ibama to evaluate Norte Energia's plan for the system to circumvent the construction site.

Leaders of the Juruna and Arara tribes have said construction of the dam, which has been opposed by environmental and indigenous-rights groups, is preventing them from traveling freely along the Xingu. At the end of June, tribal leaders occupied the dam's construction site and made similar demands, accusing Norte Energia of failing to carry out mitigation measures which the company is required to implement as part of its license to build the dam.

In a Friday statement, Norte Energia said it reached an agreement earlier this month with those tribal leaders, when they agreed to leave the construction site, that laid out measures that would be taken to resolve the problem.

"Norte Energia repudiates this kidnapping because all the accords will be met that were agreed to at the July 10 meeting," the company said.

The dam would be the world's third biggest, after China's Three Gorges and Brazil's Itaipu dam, and environmentalists and indigenous rights activists see its construction as another step toward increased development of the Amazon Basin.

Unhappy with the company's efforts so far, the leaders Wednesday said the engineers wouldn't be allowed to leave their village until a more-adequate solution to freeing up river travel was provided by Norte Energia.

Norte Energia is composed of government-controlled utility Centrais Eletricas Brasileiras, or Eletrobras; the pension funds of state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro; government lender Caixa Economica; utilities Neoenergia and Cemig; and mining company Vale. Eletrobras is the biggest shareholder, with a 49.98% stake.

The company is required to invest about $1.6 billion in social programs such as building sanitation networks and relocating houses that occupy land to be flooded by the dam. In the past, the company has said that it will carry out those investments, but that the investments will be completed as dam construction progresses.