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.

Maria Das GRacas Silva Foster - Petrobras CEO (Emerging Money)

There were high expectations for new Petrobras (PBR, quote) CEO Maria das Graças Foster. Five months later the market is still questioning if she can actually run the company. Is Foster really the Latin American ‘iron lady’?

Petrobras CEO Maria das Gracas Silva Foster

The fact is that from mid-February when Graças Foster took office until late June, PBR’s stock has declined almost 30%. However, experts — and the market — have no doubt her management is better than predecessor José Sergio Gabrielli.

According to Itaú analysts, market criticism about Foster is not about her, but what she can actually do. “While Petrobras managed by Foster and her team is definitely a better company”, they say, ”two factors remain: we cannot fight the numbers, and the controlling shareholders remain the same.” 

Experts are also worried about political interference in Petrobras’ operations, since it is a mixed economy company. However, in the past couple of weeks, a new precedent was set for PBR in Brazil. Against all odds, it was able to raise the wholesale price of gasoline by 7.83% and diesel by 3.94%. This increase represents a big victory for Foster. Moreover, this favors analysts’ view that she will improve its management by reducing political manipulation in its operations.

The market reacted timidly to the move since it was considered a small adjustment, but there was more to come. After the raise on Monday June 25, last Thursday PBR announced a second increase in fuel prices, this time sending the stock up.

Without these price rises the company would be unable to pay for its five-year investment plan of $237 billion, Foster has stated.

The move has solidified the belief that Foster can offset political influence and is able to handle the board. She went against Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega — also chairman of Petrobras’ board of directors — who led the call for no increase in fuel prices.

Neverthless, experts are aware it will take a while for PBR’s new administration to prove that it is able to execute the company’s largest investment plan ever without major hiccups. 

Chinese investments in Canada (Antoine Gara - The Street)

After failing to buy Californian driller Unocal for nearly $20 billion in 2005, CNOOC (CEO), the Chinese state-backed oil giant, has agreed to buy Canada's Nexen (NXY) for $15.1 billion in the largest-ever Chinese acquisition of a foreign energy company.

CNOOC's $27.50 per share offer for Calgary-based Nexen comes at an over-60% premium to the company's Friday close and signals that the existing Chinese buying wave in niche drillers -- as well as a web of oil and gas joint ventures in North America -- may yet morph into mega-sized M&A. The deal highlights China and its state-owned oil giants' hunger for new oil and gas exploration assets amid a projected increase in the country's energy consumption. State-backed drillers like CNOOC, PetroChina (PTR) and Sinopec (SHI) have been acquiring oil and gas assets around the world, gaining access to many promising deepwater and shale drilling basins.

The argument against outright acquisitions of domestic energy assets for national security reasons forced the Chinese oil giants to be quiet and persistent buyers of North American oil and gas assets, cutting investment deals with some of the biggest independent oil and gas companies in the US,Chesapeake Energy (CHK) and Devon Energy (DVN), across the Canadian oil sands -- one of the most-desired regions for investment and where Nexen has exposure -- and with niche drillers in Canada like Daylight Energy, which was acquired by Sinopec last year.

Even though Monday's landmark bid for Nexen will face Canadian regulatory review, Chinese energy acquisitions may remain a more relevant prospect in Canada, with joint ventures remaining the preferred way to gain access to US-based asset sellers like Chesapeake Energy.

"There are lot more deals in Canada, and they don't translate to our public markets," says Subash Chandra, an oil and gas analyst with Jefferies. He notes that outright Chinese M&A tends to be "bottled up" in Canada, with few large-scale transactions in the US.

According to Bloomberg data, Chinese oil giants are the second-largest acquirer of oil assets, behind US oil majors, cutting $35.6 billion of acquisitions last year. Notable Chinese deals include Sinopec's November acquisition of a 30% stake in Portuguese energy company Galp Energia's Brazilian subsidiary Petrogal Brasil, for over $5 billion, and a separate October acquisition of Daylight Energy, which holds 300,000 acres of shale oil and gas drilling assets, for $2.1 billion.

The interest in Canadian assets from Chinese state-run oil companies has been building. Last year, Petrochina signed a deal with Encana to buy assets in the Cutback region for $5 billion, a deal which would have been the largest-ever oil and gas acquisition in Canada by a Chinese company. That deal fell apart for undisclosed reasons.

CNOOC's bid for Nexen may still be worth watching for US investors and energy players. Benchmark analyst Mark Gilman said in November that Chinese M&A interest in North America is at least partially about acquiring the technological expertise required from complicated deepwater and shale drilling. The same could be said ofExxonMobil's (XOM) acquisition of XTO Energy, seen as not only an asset play but a shale drilling expertise and technology acquisition.

Gilman noted the key to deals will be the size of new shale finds and the emergence of new types of drilling methods like fracking. "You have to keep half an eye on the frequency on which new plays are emerging...In terms of shale, we are talking about a business that has emerged in the last two to three years and has exploded on the scene," said Gilman.

Sinopec's acquisition of a stake in Petrogal Brasil includes access to the Jupiter and Tupi offshore oil fields -- the largest oil finds in the western hemisphere since the 1970s. The push into what is known as the Brazilian pre-salt, adds to a legacy of Chinese oil ventures with established players in hard to drill areas.

More recently, Sinopec bought a 33% interest in five shale ventures owned by Devon Energy for $2.2 billion, giving it access and a drilling partner in prized shale assets like the Tuscaloosa Marine , Niobrara, Mississippian, Ohio Utica and the Michigan Basin shale formations.

The head of China's Sinopec was recently seated next to Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey 

McClendon at an NBA Finals game. Chesapeake Energy is looking to sell billions in shale assets as a way to meet a $10 billion-plus funding gap this year. There have been reports that the recent visit by Sinopec's CEO Fu Chengyu to Chesapeake's hometown of Oklahoma City was the prelude to an asset acquisition.

Estimates for the potential oil and gas trapped in Chinese domestic shale vary, but there are expectations that the Chinese energy companies will develop in the coming years a significant domestic shale drilling industry.

Unlike many Chinese acquisitions and joint ventures focused on assets in one drilling region or at least one country, Monday's acquisition of Nexen provides CNOOC access to oil and gas assets around the world, including in Canada, West African countries, and access to prized US-based Gulf of Mexico deepwater and continental shale drilling opportunities.

Cannacord Genuity analyst Phil Skolnick said the market is likely to see this as a positive indicator of the ability of Talisman Energy (TLM) to be acquired given it has a mixture of international assets (TLM's Asia assets in particular are potentially of interest). However, he noted that Talisman lacks the oil sands exposure of Nexen, which on its own makes Nexen a more attractive target. On Monday, Talisman announced that it was selling a 49% stake in its UK North Sea business to Sinopec for $1.5 billion.

Monday's deal could lead to a new round of regulatory hurdles for Chinese operators looking to gain control of US assets -- Nexen owns assets in the Gulf of Mexico -- after regulatory authorities and Congress blocked CNOOC's $18.5 billion bid for Unocal in 2005. There are those who believe the political resistance to outright acquisitions of North American assets by Chinese energy companies never made sense.

"The Unocal bid was derailed by negative press and myopic rhetoric by a few ignorant politicians," says Fadel Gheit an oil and gas analyst with Oppenheimer& Co., who notes that in the aftermath of the deal breakup, the country has remained a large investor in US energy assets. "CNOOC has invested in unconventional JVs with US independents, which benefit both and should increase our domestic production," adds Gheit. The analyst believes Chinese firms should be able to invest more freely in the US since oil is a global business.

Even if outright M&A may remain politically challenging in the US, Chinese players like CNOOC, Sinopec and PetroChina will continue to test the waters. "CNOOC is sitting on a pile of cash and has been aggressively seeking energy acquisitions for the last five years, reflecting China's hunger for energy and oil in particular, and I expect this trend to continue," says Gheit.

In November Bloomberg reported that Marathon Oil (MRO) was in talks to sell its Angolan offshore operations to Sinopec and other Asian buyers for $800 million. Reports also indicate that Marathon may look to sell 30% of a joint venture in its Gulf of Mexico deepwater assets for $1 billion to Asian buyers as part of the Houston -based company's announced plans of oil asset sales up to $3 billion.

If the deals were to go through, it wouldn't be Marathon's first sale to Chinese buyers. In 2009, state-backed oil companies Sinopec and CNOOC bought a 20% stake in a promising Angolan deepwater oil prospects from Marathon for $1.3 billion.

The political climate in Canada remains a wildcard for the Nexen deal. While Chinese state-run oil companies have had success in Canadian M&A in recent years, Canadian regulators blocked BHP Billiton's (BHP) $38.6 billion bid for Saskatchewan based fertilizer company Potash (POT) in 2010, a high-profile political end -- and M&A failure -- for what was slated to be a huge foreign acquisition of a Canadian company.

The key to the Nexen deal not suffering the same fate may be its far-flung assets.

"We don't expect there to be any regulatory issues as only 28% of Nexen's production is in Canada. Plus there is an agreement to retain NXY's management team and for CNOOC to establish Calgary as its North and Central American headquarters. CNOOC also plans to list on the Toronto Stock Exchange," writes Cannacord Genuity's Skolnick in a Monday note to clients.

A logical counter bidder would be Total, according to the analyst, however, "We don't expect Total, or really anyone else, to try to compete with China," the analyst wrote.

Read more: http://www.minyanville.com/sectors/energy/articles/thestreet-mro-chk-CEO-dvn-NXY/7/23/2012/id/42669#ixzz22FPDfPKO

Ecopetrol y PanAtlantic explorarán Cuenca Santos de Brasil

Ecopetrol Óleo e Gás do Brasil Ltda, subsidiaria de Ecopetrol S.A., y Vanco Brasil Exploração e Produção de Petróleo e Gas Natural Ltda, subsidiaria de PanAtlantic Energy Group, anunciaron que llegaron a un acuerdo según el cual Ecopetrol Óleo e Gas do Brasil adquirirá el 30% de interés de participación en tres bloques de exploración: BM-S-72 (SM-1100), BM-S-63 (SM-1036), y BM-S-71 (SM-1035), en la Cuenca Santos en el offshore brasileño.

La transacción estará sujeta a la aprobación por parte de la Agencia Nacional de Petróleo, Gas Natural y Biocombustibles (ANP) de ese país, dice el comunicado de prensa de la estatal petrolera colombiana.

Según el acuerdo, PanAtlantic, a través de su subsidiaria en Brasil, mantendrá el 40% de su interés de participación en los bloques y continuará como operador de los tres pozos que hacen parte de la campaña exploratoria del 2012, la cual comenzó el pasado 7 de julio con la perforación del pozo Sabia 1X en el bloque BM-S-72 .

Las participaciones adicionales de los bloques continuarán en poder de Panoro Energy do Brasil Ltda., con el 15%, y de Brasoil Round 9 Exploracáo Petrolifera Ltda, con el 15%.

Ecopetrol S.A. estableció su subsidiaria Ecopetrol Óleo e Gas do Brasil Ltda en el año 2006. Los nuevos bloques en la Cuenca Santos se suman al portafolio de la compañía en Brasil, la cual incluye la participación en las actividades de exploración offshore en 8 bloques localizados en la región de Pará-Maranhao y en las cuencas Santos y Campos.

La adquisición de estos activos exploratorios está alineada con la estrategia de Ecopetrol de producir 1 millón de barriles de petróleo equivalente por día en el 2015 y 1,3 millones de barriles de petróleo equivalente por día en 2020. 

Abu Dhabi and Dubai '- 100 MW solar plant (REVE)

Abu Dhabi and Dubai have set the region's first renewable energy targets, and this year we are opening a 100MW concentrating solar plant

UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi said the UAE had made great progress in diversifying the base of economy, with oil and gas production, while still very important, now accounts for only about a third of GDP.

Addressing a session of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development Rio+20, which ended yesterday, Sheikha Lubna underlined UAE's commitment to sustainable development which shapes the country's domestic policy as well as international cooperation, both rooted deeply in the values of the country, shaped above all by the founding father the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan.

Below is the full text of Sheikha Lubna's speech Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is an honor and a pleasure to address you here in Rio at this important event, which marks the 20th anniversary of the original Earth Summit, and which is likewise poised to influence the direction of sustainable development for our generation.

The United Arab Emirates is proud to be part of the global effort to enhance the sustainability of global development.

In many ways, the Rio process has marked important milestones in the UAE's development story.

When the first Earth Summit was held in Rio in 1992 the UAE as a country was just 20 years old.

Now, 20 years on, we have the opportunity to reflect on the progress we have made, and the challenges we still have ahead of us. I want to reflect on the UAE's progress on each of the pillars of sustainable development - economic, social and environmental.

On economic development we have made great progress. Since the first Rio summit the UAE's economy has grown by over 400 percent.

Perhaps more importantly, we have made great progress in diversifying the base of our economy. Oil and gas production, while still very important, now accounts for only about a third of GDP. I will come back in a moment to the role that sustainability has played in this diversification.

On the social front, the UAE is now among the top 30 countries in the world as measured by the UNDP's Human Development Index. Great advances in health, education and prosperity underpin this progress.

I want especially to point to the active role that the UAE has taken in the empowerment of women. Twenty years ago women formed barely 10% of the workforce. Today, 77% of Emirati women continue to higher education from high school, and around 60% are in employment.

The UAE has 4 women cabinet ministers, and women are represented in government, the private sector, the judiciary and even the armed forces.

The environmental pillar has also long been important to us. Well before the first Rio summit the UAE had set aside significant areas for conservation.

But today that commitment to the environment is much further-reaching. Clean energy is a central plank of our development strategy. And we are innovating solutions in energy efficiency, water efficiency, building standards, and sustainable cities that we hope will have beneficial applications in our region and the world.

These ambitious activities have come together in the announcement this year by the UAE's Prime Minister, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Makhtoum, that the UAE is embarked upon a strategy of pursuing a Green Economy for Sustainable Development.

Today, this vision is driving a range of important initiatives across the UAE. Let me point to a few examples: - The UAE has adopted the first mandatory building efficiency codes in the region, and mandatory efficiency standards for cooling.

- Abu Dhabi and Dubai have set the region's first renewable energy targets, and this year we are opening a 100MW concentrating solar plant, one of the largest in the world.

- We are building Masdar City, a world-first low-carbon urban development powered by renewable energy and a test bed for cutting edge clean energy and efficiency technologies.

- The Masdar Institute, established together with the Massachusetts Institute for Technology, is the world's first postgraduate university solely dedicated to clean energy technology.

- The Emirati student body is roughly half women, and these students are already generating new clean energy technology and intellectual property today. Some of those students are with us here in Rio.

- Dubai has implemented the first light rail system in the region, which now carries more than 40 million passengers per year.

The UAE's commitment to sustainable development extends to international efforts too.

The UAE is a generous donor of international assistance.

Significant parts of our aid has driven progress on the Millennium Development Goals, particularly on issues such as health and education.

Increasingly, we are also putting our development assistance behind the wider deployment of renewable energy, with supported projects in Afghanistan, Tonga, Seychelles and others.

In addition, we are a major investor in clean energy internationally, for instance a new concentrating solar power plant in Spain opened last year as part of a joint venture between Masdar and Sener.

This commitment to international sustainable development efforts is underlined by our support for the International Renewable Energy Agency, which is headquartered in Abu Dhabi.

This is part of a wider effort to help bring the world together on innovation and sustainability issues. Dubai hopes to be the host of the World Expo in 2020 under "Connecting Minds, Creating the Future" theme. Yesterday, we have announced " Abu Dhabi Sustainability week" that will take place Next January, bringing together the World Future Energy Summit, the International Water Summit, the International Renewable Energy Conference, IRENA's General Assembly and the Zayed Future Energy Prize Award Ceremony. We believe that such gatherings can help foster the deeper international cooperation essential for tackling the world's major challenges especially the Energy-Water Nexus.

So our commitment to sustainable development shapes both our domestic policy and our international cooperation. Both are rooted deeply in the values of our country, shaped above all by our founding father the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan. These values include a respect for nature, an emphasis on education, a stress on rights and opportunities for women, and an open and tolerant society.

Much remains to be done. For instance, the UAE is working to reduce its' greenhouse gas emissions. This is challenging due to our cooling needs - a basic necessity in a hot arid environment - the need to desalinate water, and an energy intensive industrial base.

But we are committed to taking action to mitigate this effect, and the significant progress we have made in so many other areas of sustainable development gives me confidence that we can be an active contributor to the global solutions required here too.

We want the process beyond Rio to build on this kind of progress. I want to comment briefly on what I think has been achieved here in Rio, and where it take us next.

First, I welcome the launch of a process to develop Sustainable Development Goals, building on and complementing the existing MDGs. The UAE has been an enthusiastic supporter of this concept, and we intend to remain active in their further development.

It is no longer acceptable that more than 1.3 billion people do not have access to electricity, or that over 780 million people still lack access to safe drinking water. Let us therefore agree to a set of priority areas, including energy, water, education and food security, to provide guidance to the SDG process. These themes are the corner stone in our global coordinated effort to eradicate poverty.

Second, we welcome the formal recognition of the Sustainable Energy for All initiative, for which Masdar's CEO Dr. Sultan Al Jaber serves on the High Level Panel. These initiatives should generate a range of targeted and ambitious programs to drive clean energy and other sustainable sectors. We should build on the work of this initiative to drive access to energy around the world, using ever cleaner technologies.

Third, I am encouraged to see the Rio text recognize the central role that education and empowerment plays in any successful strategy to promote sustainable development. We should seek ways to enhance the empowerment of women, which has been such a central part of the UAE's success story.

Fourth, the recognition of the Eye on Earth network is an important endorsement of the important role played by high quality environmental information. We invite all countries to join us in this initiative, which helps deliver on goals set at the last Earth Summit in Johannesburg in 2002.

We also welcome the attention given to water issues in the text. It is clear to me that this raises questions about international governance of water that need further discussion. I would like to extend to you an invitation to participate in the next International Water Summit in Abu Dhabi next January as an important forum for taking what we have discussed and agreed upon in RIO into a concrete plan of action.

The scale of the sustainable development challenge ahead of us is undoubtedly large. But the experience of countries like the UAE provide practical, positive examples of what can be achieved in 20 years.

I look forward to meeting again in 2032 and sharing our experiences and hearing about yours. I have no doubt that we will still speak of formidable challenges ahead.

But I also believe that we will hear stories of human ingenuity creating a better world.