The process of selling Pesca Chile continues, despite Pescanova's attempts to slow down the liquidation of the company and its Chilean subsidiaries until the situation of the Galician multinational in Spain is resolved.
Uruguayan president José Mujica said that members of Mercosur must readjust the block's legal framework ‘to make it work’ so that differences among its partners can be resolved in an institutional framework. He insisted on a review and amendment of mechanisms with greater flexibility and more adapted to current circumstances.
President Manuel Ortega said on Saturday that the construction of a massive inter-oceanic canal in Nicaragua that could significantly alter global trade would start at the end of 2014. Ortega gave a Chinese group a concession to manage the future shipping channel for 50 years, with the possibility to renew the contract for another 50.
The Falkland Islands budding oil and gas industry advanced a further step this week when the Falklands' Planning and Building Committee gave planning permission to a temporary dock facility (TDF) in Stanley harbor that will provide logistics support to exploration drilling.
A labor appeals court in north-central Argentina ruled that the construction of a Monsanto plant is unconstitutional, halting work on the site. The three judge court ruled 2-1 in favor of the activists who filed a legal appeal against Monsanto’s GMO seed plant on environmental protection grounds in the municipality of Malvinas Argentinas, located in central Cordoba Province.
The Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, said on Wednesday it would be impossible to meet the demands of Italian builder Impregilo, which has called on the government agency to make an additional payment of up to 1 billion dollars to cover cost overruns affecting a project to expand the international waterway.
Panama Canal officials offered Tuesday to share the burden in a 283 million dollars fund to end a spat with a consortium threatening to halt the waterway's expansion over huge cost overruns. The proposal came after two days of intense talks under mediation of a Spanish cabinet minister who flew to Panama City for emergency meetings aimed at preventing a shutdown of the major project.
Successful trade missions to Uruguay and Chile and the growing support and know-how links with Scotland for the development of the Falkland Islands oil and gas industry were mentioned as some of the 2013 highlights by Roger Spink, president of the Falklands Chamber of Commerce in his Christmas speech.
Spain stepped in on Friday to try to resolve a cost dispute over the expansion of Panama's canal, which has triggered a sell-off in the shares of Sacyr SA, the Spanish builder leading the project. Spain's Public Works minister, Ana Pastor, and Sacyr Chairman Manuel Manrique are due to travel to Panama on the weekend, Panama's president, Ricardo Martinelli, said.
After a busy 2011 and 2012, 2013 was a relatively quiet year for exploration around the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The various companies involved in the region's nascent oil and gas industry preferred to spend the year focusing on seismic data acquisition campaigns and consolidating some of their assets.