Norway's Equinor will invest up to US$ 15 billion in Brazil over the next 12 years to develop oil, gas and renewable energy sources, the company said. Coinciding with an expected drop in output from many aging oilfields off the cost of Norway, Brazil is expected to become a core region for Equinor as the firm takes advantage of the country’s opening in recent years to more foreign investment.
Brazil’s oil regulator ANP has approved the applications of six companies—including Big Oil’s BP, Shell, and Total—to bid in next month’s oil auction of four blocks in the coveted pre-salt layer, ANP announced on Wednesday.
While the foreign exchange market in Argentina experienced a chaotic Thursday with no ceiling for the US dollar as locals dumped their Argentine pesos, the Argentine stock market witnessed another strong increase with the Merval index up 5.3% reaching 26.754,85 points, boosted mainly by the oil industry stocks.
The Argentine Peso plummeted 15.6% to a new record on Thursday, and ended trading at 39.87 after having reached almost 42 Pesos to the US dollar in mid afternoon. This follows on the Wednesday which also witnessed the Argentine currency slide 7% to the greenback.
Argentina's Peso suffered its biggest one-day slide in almost three years on Wednesday after the central bank sold reserves for a second straight day and the president asked the International Monetary Fund for early release of standby funds.
The Brazilian government may restrict entrance of Venezuelans at the border in the remote northwestern state of Roraima, President Michel Temer said on Wednesday, after a flood of migrants has strained local services and sparked violence with residents.
The United States economic growth was stronger than initially thought in the second quarter, notching its best performance in nearly four years and putting the economy on track to hit the Trump administration’s goal of 3% annual growth.
Argentina re-launched a one-year-old agreement between the government, companies and workers to drive competition and spur development in the Vaca Muerta shale play, the government said in a statement.
The EU must back Theresa May's Brexit plan or risk the UK leaving without a deal, the most senior member of the UK PM's cabinet has said. Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington said the European Commission's proposals remained unacceptable and he appealed for compromise from the EU side in Brexit talks.
Chilean airline LATAM has plans to lay off some 1,200 airport-based employees in Brazil and replace them with workers from a services company in an apparent cost-cutting measure, according to a report in O Estado de S. Paulo on Wednesday. LATAM confirmed there would be redundancies but would not give an exact number.