Brazil's BNDES (Brazilian Development Bank) announced that it has approved a funding of 2.49 billion Brazilian reais (US$ 1.41 billion) for building the Coari-Manaus natural gas transport pipeline, owned by Petrobras, in the northern Brazilian state of Amazonas.
The funding is one of the actions forecast by the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), launched on January this year by the federal government.
The project will benefit Transportadora Urucu Manaus, a society that was established with the specific purpose of implementing the plan. The pipeline will have 383 kilometers (238 miles).
According to the BNDES, also to be built are nine natural gas distribution branches, aiming to cater to seven municipalities in the state of Amazonas along the length of the pipeline.
The Coari-Manaus pipeline will have a daily transport capacity of 5.5 million cubic meters, which can be expanded to up to 10 million daily cubic meters according to the development of the market.
According to Petrobras, the natural gas will be initially used by a thermoelectric plant in Manaus for power generation purposes. At a later stage, the product should be supplied to the industrial, commercial and residential sectors in the region. The project should create 36,000 job positions, of which 9,000 will be direct jobs.
The pipeline, which will take natural gas from Urucu, in the municipality of Coari, in the Amazonas state to the state's capital city Manaus is being built since mid 2006. It should be ready by April 2008.
ABr
