Dodgy Deal: Madeira River Dams, Brazil

The Madeira River Project consists of two huge hydroelectric dams on the Madeira, the principal tributary of the Amazon River in Brazil: Santo Antonio (installed generating capacity 3,150 MW) and Jirau (installed capacity 3,300 MW) - at a total cost of approximately US$10 billion. The financing for the project is not yet finalized, however, Brazilian as well as Spanish and Portuguese banks are interested in providing finance for the project.

Rio Madeira Dam Protest, 2006 (Lucia Ortiz, FOE Brazil)

The Brazilian state-owned banks Banco do Brasil*, along with the largest Brazilian private banks Banco Itaú*, Banco Bradesco* and Unibanco* are currently analysing the project. The Spanish bank BBVA* also expressed an interest. Banco Santander is the project advisor and lead arranger of Odebrecht, having already launched a private equity fund, together with the Portuguese Banif, to take an equity stake of 20%. Other banks, such as Banco Votorantim, Pactual, to name a few, are actively tracking the project to grasp financing opportunities. (* Equator Principles banks)

Follow the link to BankTrack's Dodgy Deal Section for more information on the financing of the Rio Madeira projects. http://www.banktrack.org/?show=dodgy&id=38