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Brazil has agreed to release water at the giant Itaipu hydroelectric dam to raise low water levels in the Parana River, a key thoroughfare for grains shipments, Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday.<\/p>\n
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Decade-low water levels on the Parana are forcing Argentine exporters to load less soy and other grains on ships bound largely for China, adding a new problem to a sector already beset by bottlenecks due to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
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The agreement with Brazil will allow for an additional 1,400 cubic meters of water flow to be added to the river, the ministry said in a statement. The two sides also agreed to a weekly dialogue mechanism to discuss the region’s chronic drought, the Argentinian ministry said.<\/p>\n
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The move will help to ramp up Argentine soy exports, which compete with Brazilian farmers’ output on global markets.<\/p>\n
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Brazil’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to request for comment.<\/p>\n
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Brazil’s power industry had balked at the request from Argentina due to the scarce reserves of water supplying the mega-dam, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, requesting anonymity due to diplomatic sensitivities.<\/p>\n
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Dry weather has drained all but 17% of the reservoirs in southern Brazil feeding the dam’s hydroelectric power plant, which is running far below capacity due to the dampening effect of the coronavirus outbreak on electricity demand.<\/p>\n
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“With lower-than-average reserves we’re going to spill water … pouring money down the spillway?” said one of the Brazilian sources.<\/p>\n
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On Thursday, a representative for Argentina’s foreign ministry said the country was not offering anything in return for Brazil to raise the level of the Parana River.<\/p>\n
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The negotiations were conducted between the two country’s foreign ministries, Brazil’s National Electric System Operator and Paraguay, which runs Itaipu as a joint venture with Brazil, according to the sources.<\/p>\n
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An Itaipu representative said dam operator itself did not participate in the discussions.<\/p>\n
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(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison in Buenos Aires, Luciano Costa and Rodrigo Viga Gaier; Additional reporting by Hugh Bronstein; Writing by Jake Spring; Editing by Brad Haynes, Marguerita Choy and Sonya Hepinstall)<\/em><\/p>\n maritime professional<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Brazil has agreed to release water at the giant Itaipu hydroelectric dam to raise low water levels in the Parana River, a key thoroughfare for grains shipments, Argentina’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday. Decade-low water levels on the Parana are forcing Argentine exporters to load less soy and other grains on ships bound largely for …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8379,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[4132,486,2299,5123,1826,3938],"class_list":["post-8378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-news","tag-agrees","tag-brazil","tag-level","tag-parana","tag-raise","tag-river"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/8379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.al-sindbad.net\/rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}