A Brazilian Court suspended the operating license for the 11,233 MW Belo Monte hydropower project on the Xingu River in the Para state (Amazon) after allegations that the project owners did not meet environmental requirements.
The project is very controversial and Norte Energia, the operator of the project, had to deal with worksite occupations and approval cancellations mainly because the project construction affects several indigenous people in the neighbourhood. Several court-ordered work stoppages happened in the past back in 2012 and in January 2016, the Federal Court of Brazilian state of Para in Brazil suspended the operating license of the Belo Monte project a few weeks before Norte Energia planned to start power generation.
The US$26bn plant was originally scheduled to start commercial operations in February 2015 but according to Norte Energia, the project is now expected to start in January 2019 only.
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