Brazil Officials Criticize Chevron Over Oil Spill
Chevron came under intense scrutiny in Brazil on Friday over an oil spill at an offshore field the company operates, with federal investigators here threatening fines for Chevron and potential prison terms for its officials if they are found guilty of violating environmental contamination laws
By SIMON ROMERO | The New York Times | November 18, 2011
The response to the spill, which Chevron said it was notified of on Nov. 8, is an important test for the authorities as Brazil moves to tap oil from its large recent offshore discoveries. [Rogerio Santana, via Reuters]
The response to the spill, which Chevron said it was notified of on Nov.8 and which left an oil sheen near Brazil’s southeast coast, is an important test for the authorities as Brazil moves to tap oil from its large recent offshore discoveries. If Brazil meets its ambitious production goals, it may emerge by the 2020s as the world’s fourth-largest oil producer after Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
While the spill, from an appraisal well in the Campos Basin, is thought to be much smaller than BP’s oil spill last year in the Gulf of Mexico and is said by Chevron to have almost dissipated, it also presents an additional challenge for Chevron in Latin America. In nearby Ecuador, Chevron has faced seething resentment and a protracted legal battleover oil contamination in the country’s rain forest.
Fábio Scliar, the head of the environment affairs division of the federal police, flew this week over the area of the spill, where Chevron has said it has 18 vessels controlling and is monitoring the sheen. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Scliar expressed annoyance over Chevron’s handling of the spill and its methods of cooperating with Brazilian investigators.
“They’ve been very resistant about providing information, and they were hesitant about allowing me to land on the platform,” Mr. Scliar said. “We had to be rather energetic with them about our requests.”
Mr. Scliar said Chevron employees could face prison terms of several years if they were found to be have violated environmental laws. He said he would request testimony next week from several Chevron employees.
Responding to Mr. Scliar’s assertions, Kurt Glaubitz, a spokesman for Chevron, said Friday in a statement: “We are working with all appropriate agencies to resolve the issue. We have provided all available resources to manage the situation.”
Mr. Glaubitz said that Chevron had “accommodated all requests for information in a timely manner,” and that the “situation is largely resolved.” He said that Chevron was told by Petrobras, the national oil company and Chevron’s partner in the affected area, the Frade field, of the spill on Nov. 8, and that Chevron found oil seeping from the ocean floor the next day.
Several Brazilian government entities monitoring the spill, including the National Petroleum Agency, said Friday in a statement that Chevron had achieved a “substantial reduction” of the oil seepage in recent days.
Mr. Glaubitz said that the volume of the sheen on Friday was estimated at about 18 barrels.
Earlier in the week, Chevron estimated that the spill involved 400 to 650 barrels of oil from its Frade field, in waters about 3,800 deep. (The BP oil spill involved nearly five million barrels.) Mr. Glaubitz said Chevron was planning to conduct an internal investigation, and would cooperate fully with the authorities.
Marina Silva, a former environment minister and presidential candidate, said in a telephone interview that the spill served as a warning as Brazil moved ahead with exceedingly complex projects to produce oil from its “pre-salt” discoveries, beneath waters almost 10,000 feet deep and thick layers of salt, sand and rock.
“This event is a three-dimensional alert to the problems that may occur,” Ms. Silva said. “This certainly does not smell good.”
Despite Chevron’s assertions that the problem was contained, it faced mounting criticism from various other quarters in Brazil. Legislators said they would summon Chevron officials to appear for questioning. And here in Rio, where Brazil’s energy industry is largely based around Petrobras, activists from Greenpeace emptied black ink on Friday in front of Chevron’s headquarters to protest the spill.
Carlos Minc, the top environmental official for the state of Rio de Janeiro, said the spill was “much bigger” than Chevron’s estimates.
Speaking on the Globo television network, Mr. Minc said that the authorities would “demand compensation” for any damage done to fishing or wildlife.
Several Brazilian news media reports referred to information from SkyTruth, an environmental group in the United States that uses satellite images to track oil spills and other accidents. John Amos, the group’s president, said he estimated that the spill was perhaps 10 times larger than Chevron’s estimates, meaning it extended over about 918 square miles.
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