Furnas, Odebrecht conclude Jirau study

Federally-owned Brazilian generator Furnas and engineering company Odebrecht filed Wednesday the feasibility study for the 3,300MW Jirau hydroelectric project on the Madeira river in the western Amazon, Furnas said in a statement Wednesday. Furnas also plans to file by the end of the month studies for the 3,700MW Santo Antonio plant, also part of the Madeira complex. The two projects form part of the Madeira complex, a plan that involves the power generation and a 4,200km waterway project, and is considered to be a landmark in the regional development of the Amazon region and for integration with neighboring Peru and Bolivia, the statement said. The flooding would make a waterway linking the Amazon regions of Peru and Bolivia and western Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. In March, the companies plan to conclude environmental impact studies. Brazil's electricity regulator Aneel will prepare a tender for the projects' construction and operation licenses. By Brazilian law, the government has to tender large power generation projects. If groups that carried out the feasibility study do not win the licenses, they can get reimbursed by winners. The Madeira complex has faced resistance from environmental protection groups as well as market analysts. While environmental pressure groups say that large dams irreparably damage the local environmental and displace too many people, analysts consider them to be economically unfeasible since they are too risky, forcing them to be developed by state-owned companies, raising the amount of power generation controlled by federal companies. Together Jirau and Santo Antonio would flood about 150 square kilometers in the Amazon state of Rondonia, a preliminary study said.