
Brazil's biggest oil field, Libra, will cost 80 billion dollars to develop, according to a senior executive with France's Total, one of five consortium members participating in the project. Total's vice president of exploration and production for the Americas, Ladislas Paszkiewicz, made the estimate at the Rio Oil & Gas conference, which began Monday and runs through Thursday.

Falkland Oil and Gas Limited (FOGL) reported this week that it is making progress with its preparations for its next drilling campaign, which is scheduled to start during the first quarter of 2015 off the South Atlantic Falklands Islands.

Brazil will hold a 13th round of oil rights auctions in the first half of next year in a sale that will include new areas in the country's promising Eastern Margin offshore region, a senior mines and energy ministry official said this week.

Norwegian giant salmon-faming company Marine Harvest has announced an agreement to purchase assets of the former Chilean farming company Acuinova Chile SA, currently in bankruptcy, for 120 million dollars.

Spanish banking giant Santander under its new executive chairperson Ana Botin announced on Monday the purchase of the remaining 25% of Banco Santander Brasil which it did not already own.

A space tracking station for lunar exploration being built in Argentine Patagonia by China, as part of the strategic relation and accords between the two countries, has caused concern in the Argentine congress because of the secrecy surrounding the terms of the deal.

Singapore based Olam International's wholly-owned subsidiary New Zealand Farming Systems Uruguay will be investing 80 million dollars to establish a new dairy processing facility in Uruguay.

Despite all the negative news on government restrictions imposed on the Argentine economy and the shortage of hard currency, the country's Merval Index has skyrocketed almost 100% this year, the highest of any stock market in the world. It includes many of the largest companies in the country such as Telecom Argentina and Energy Petrobras, along with banks and a steel maker.

Uruguay officially inaugurated on Monday a second pulp mill, Montes del Plata, on the River Plate, belonging to Chile's Arauco and Swedish-Finnish Stora Enso, which is considered the largest single investment in the country and will have an annual production of 1.3 million tons.

Argentina's Senate on Thursday passed a bill aimed at circumventing U.S. court decisions regarding its defaulted debt by changing payment jurisdiction, sending the proposal to the lower house Chamber of Deputies for final approval. The chamber, like the Senate, is controlled by government allies who are expected to vote the bill into law.