State Grid Brazil Holding has won a contract to build a transmission line for the Belo Monde hydroelectric dam, which is located deep in the Amazon rainforest, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Saturday.
In an auction at the Sao Paulo Stock Exchange, the subsidiary of China's State Grid Corp made the lowest bid Thursday by offering to operate the dam's second power line in exchange for 988 million reais ($309 million) a year.
The winning offer was 19 percent lower than the maximum amount permitted in the auction.
Spanish firm Abengoa came in second place. Abengoa's bid was for 1.049 billion reais per year, a 14 percent discount.
State Grid Brazil Holding has committed to finish building the line in 2019 and to begin operating it in 2020. It has a 20-year concession.
The second transmission line will run for 2,250 kilometers and connect the Belo Monte dam to the town of Nova Iguacu near Rio de Janeiro.
The project is expected to create 16,800 direct jobs in the states of Para, Tocantins, Goias, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro.
The construction is estimated to require an investment of 7 billion reais, and it will be spread across five Brazilian states.
According to Ramon Haddad, vice president for operations at State Grid Brazil Holding, the scale of the project means that the Chinese company will seek a partner in Brazil to help.
Construction on the Belo Monte dam began in March 2011, but the project has faced regular opposition by indigenous communities, farmers, fishermen and ecologists, who maintain the project will have a devastating environmental impact on the Amazon.
Work on the dam should be completed by January 2019, but construction has seen regular interruptions due to judicial reversals, strikes by workers and protests. Belo Monte will dam the Xingu river, a tributary to the Amazon, and flood 506 square kilometers of the jungle.
Once fully operational, Belo Monte will have a maximum capacity of 11,233 megawatts (MW), and is estimated to produce at an average capacity of 4,419 MW a year. It will be the world's third-largest hydroelectric dam and is located in the northern state of Para.
