
CAP, one of Chile's largest mining companies, announced plans this week to construct a 250 million US dollars desalinization plant to provide water for its iron mining operations in Chile’s northern Atacama area (Region III).

British Airways and Spanish airline Iberia say they have reached a preliminary agreement for a merger expected to be completed in late 2010. The merger, which must be approved by the European Commission, would create Europe's third biggest airline.
Under its terms, Iberia would take a 45% stake and BA, which last week reported a six-month pre-tax loss of £292m, a 55% stake in the company.

The winning ticket holders of the United Kingdom's largest-ever lottery prize are a married couple from Newport, in south Wales, and a syndicate from Liverpool. The two tickets will take a £45,570,835.50 share of Friday's £90m (100 million Euros) Euro-millions jackpot.

Mining and construction industries have led Chile’s economic recovery, according to a recently released economic report.

Brazil's government managed oil and gas group Petrobras announced Wednesday it had signed a contract permitting the first payment from a 10 billion US dollar loan from China to help it finance upcoming investments.

Chinese energy giant China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has bought oil assets in the US for the first time. CNOOC purchased limited stakes in four deepwater exploitation licences in the Gulf of Mexico from Norway's Statoil. The size of the deal is secret, but Statoil said it was small.

The Swedish-Finland group Stora Enso and Chile’s Arauco confirmed to the Uruguayan government their intention of building a pulp mill in the country with an investment in the range of two billion US dollars reports the Montevideo daily Ultimas Noticias.

The Argentine government strongly repudiated on Friday a report from the Environmental Board of Uruguay saying Argentina had adulterated information referred to the pulp mill dispute submitted to the International Court at The Hague.

The world's largest cruise liner began Friday its maiden voyage to Florida, gliding out from a shipyard in Finland with an amphitheatre, basketball courts and an ice rink on board. The 16-deck Oasis of the Seas spans 360 metres from bow to stern. Its 2,700 cabins can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew.

Relations between Argentina and Chile are going through an optimum moment and once we drill through the Andes, “ghosts of the past will definitively have gone”, said Argentine president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner during the first of her two day visit to Chile.