page_title: Brazil and weapons of mass destruction
section_title: Cachimbo Test Site
hierarchical_section_title: Brazil and weapons of mass destruction / Facilities / Cachimbo Test Site
caption_attribution_description: English: President Lula visits the Nuclear-electric Generation Laboratory (Labgene) where steam generators are used
context_page_description: In the 1970s and 1980s, during the military regime, Brazil had a secret program intended to develop nuclear weapons. The program was dismantled in 1990, five years after the military regime ended, and Brazil is considered free of weapons of mass destruction.
  Brazil is one of many countries to forswear nuclear weapons under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty but possesses some of the key technologies needed to produce nuclear weapons.
context_section_description: The Cachimbo test site, officially named Brigadeiro Velloso Test Site (Portuguese: Campo de Provas Brigadeiro Velloso), is located in the State of Pará and covers 45,000 square kilometres, an area larger than the Netherlands. It is within this military area that a 320 meters-deep hole at the Cachimbo Mountain Range was site for nuclear explosives tests. The shaft has been public knowledge since 1986 and was allegedly abandoned in September 1990, when President Fernando Collor de Mello used a small shovel to symbolically seal up the hole.
caption: President Lula da Silva inspecting the Brazilian Navy's Nuclear Propulsion Development Facility in July 2007. This facility produces uranium hexafluoride gas for uranium enrichment.
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