
Uruguay’s state owned power company UTE moved closer to linking with Brazil’s Eletrobras for wind projects after its board gave the go-ahead to explore a partnership.

The six-month old administration of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s is again under strain following on her strong character reactions, thus casting doubts about the passing of her legislative agenda, which is already considerably delayed.

Toyota, the world's biggest automaker said Monday it will temporarily halt work at factories in Brazil and Argentina due to the lack of parts from Japan after the massive March quake and tsunami.

Spanish oil and gas group Repsol YPF announced last week that its joint venture with China's Sinopec Group had made a new discovery of good quality oil in Brazilian ultra-deep water.

Brazil's state development bank, BNDES, is lending to companies at the lowest rate relative to the country's benchmark in two years, undercutting President Dilma Rousseff's efforts to curb inflation, revealed the Sao Paulo financial press.

BNDES bank will not put up the 2.4 billion US dollars it pledged for the merger of Brazil's biggest retailers, Grupo Pao de Acucar and France's Carrefour, unless France’s Casino is on board, bank president Luciano Coutinho said in a local magazine.

Four of the top officials in Brazil's Transportation Ministry have been temporarily suspended from their posts after a magazine reported on fraud they allegedly committed in several bidding contests on public works.

Reserve estimates in the Santos Basin off the coast of Brazil have an upside potential of 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent, an energy company in London said.

Deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazon, the world’s biggest rain forest, more than doubled last month as farmers become more confident they’ll be granted amnesty for illegal logging.

Brazil’s primary budget surplus exceeded expectations in May, providing additional support for the central bank in its efforts to cool the fastest inflation since 2005. The bank also revealed that net debt for May was 39.8% of GDP.