Brasilia, May 6 (Inditop.com/EFE) Brazil will invest 951 billion reais ($540 billion) in energy projects over the next nine years, state-owned Energy Research Corporation has said.
Around 70 percent of the investment will go into oil and natural gas projects. Exploration and production projects will get $287 billion in funding, allowing Brazil to double its production of crude oil from the current two million barrels per day to nearly 5.1 million barrels per day by the end of this decade.
A report released by the energy corporation Wednesday said a total of $85 billion is being spent on five new refineries already under construction by state-owned oil giant Petrobras. One refinery project is in Peruvian capital Lima.
The supply of natural gas is expected to soar 67 percent by the end of the decade, rising from 49 million cubic meters per day in 2010 to 116 million cubic meters per day, the report said.
With nearly 30 million cubic metres per day of gas imported from Bolivia and 21 million cubic metres per day of liquefied natural gas purchased from others, Brazil will have a daily surplus of 15 million cubic metres per day of gas in 2019, the Energy Research Corporation said.
The power projects should give Brazil an average surplus of 5,800 MW by 2014, leading to a “pretty calm” situation, the report said.
Some $38 billion will also be spent on biodiesel and sugarcane ethanol projects.
Ethanol production in Brazil will rise 250 percent to 64 billion litres annually by 2019.
