Environment, agribusiness, energy, infrastructure and the trade-offs surrounding Brazil’s natural-resource economy.
The 2019 collapse of Vale’s B1 tailings dam in Brumadinho killed 270 people under the count used in criminal proceedings. As hearings run through May 2027, the case remains a test of corporate accountability, regulation and mining safety in Brazil.
Petrobras, through Petrobras Netherlands B.V., has signed production-sharing contracts for eight offshore exploration blocks in Côte d’Ivoire, expanding its international exploration acreage.
Brazil’s national space research institute recorded 5,731 square kilometers of PRODES-measured deforestation in the Legal Amazon in the year through July 2025, down 12.07% from the previous annual period.
Brazil’s exports rose 10.3% in the first eight months of 2026, with China taking a larger role in the increase while shipments to the United States declined. The figures highlight a growing concentration question for Latin America’s largest economy rather than proving dependence on any one market.
Brazil’s new critical-minerals policy establishes a council to set priorities and a suite of financing and traceability tools. Its practical reach will depend on regulations still to be issued.
On May 6, 1997, Brazil transferred control of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, then known as CVRD, to private shareholders in an auction that raised R$3.34 billion for 41.73% of its voting capital.
Operation Lava Jato, known internationally as Car Wash, became one of Brazil’s most consequential anti-corruption investigations. Its record includes major corporate settlements and compliance commitments, but also later Supreme Court rulings that annulled specific proceedings and excluded a category of Odebrecht-derived evidence.
Eletrobras’ 2022 capitalization reduced the federal government’s stake from 61.69% to 36.99%, ending its majority ownership. The transaction did not remove the state from Brazil’s wider power sector: Itaipu-related interests and nuclear operator Eletronuclear remained under federal control.
Brazil’s food-supply agency Conab estimates that the country will produce a record 361.7 million tonnes of grains and oilseeds in the 2025/26 harvest, 2.6% more than a year earlier.
Brazil’s 1997 auction of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, now Vale, transferred voting control of the mining company to a domestic consortium for R$3.338 billion. The deal became a defining moment in the country’s broader privatization program.
Brazil has created Redata, a special tax regime for data-center projects that covers cloud computing, high-performance computing and artificial-intelligence workloads while imposing local-market and sustainability requirements on beneficiaries.
On November 8, 2007, Petrobras announced the Tupi discovery in Brazil’s pre-salt province, estimating 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent in recoverable light oil and natural gas. The estimate was preliminary, but the discovery became a landmark in the country’s offshore energy history.