Chevron Oil Spill: Brazil Investigates Offshore Incident

SAO PAULO — The Brazilian Federal Police on Thursday began investigating an oil spill in an offshore field operated by Chevron Corp., a leak that an environmental group alleges is far bigger than the company has stated.

Fabio Scliar, head of the Federal Police department's environmental affairs division, told government news service Agencia Brasil that his division began to look into the causes and extent of the spill.

Globo TV's G1 website quoted Scliar as saying that technicians he sent to the offshore field came back with information that conflicted with that provided by Chevron.

He said they only saw one ship being used in the cleanup while Chevron has said there were 18 being used on a rotating basis. Without going into details he said there was also conflicting information regarding the size of the leak.

A request for an interview emailed by The Associated Press to the Federal Police went unanswered.

Chevron has said that the oil spill was between 400 and 650 barrels of oil, but that the company had contained the leak. The company said in a Thursday statement that "cementing operations are taking place as part of ... well plugging activities."

Chevron said the oil on the ocean surface had "substantially dissipated" and that the slick was down to "less than 65 barrels."

The drilling contractor for the well is Transocean – the owner of the Deepwater Horizon rig that oil company BP was leasing at the time of last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest in U.S. history.

Ana Carolina Oliveira, a spokeswoman for Brazil's oil regulator, the National Petroleum Agency, said an estimated 1,000 barrels had leaked to the surface and that it was still unclear if the leak was contained.

"We should know by Friday," she said.

SkyTruth, a nonprofit group that uses satellite imagery to detect environmental problems, said on its website the oil spill extended 918 square miles (2,379 square kilometers) and that the spill rate as of Tuesday was up to at least 3,738 barrels per day.

Chevron said in its statement that it "continues to fully inform and work with Brazilian government agencies and industry partners on all aspects of this matter."

"If Chevron is not doing what it should (to contain the spill) it will be severely punished," Mines and Energy Minister Edison Lobao said Thursday.

Curt Trennepohl, the president of Brazil's environmental protection agency, Ibama, said in a statement that Chevron has not omitted any information and has implemented all the emergency procedures required.

In an indication that the oil spill has not been completely stanched he said, "The company will be fined when the spill is contained because the value of the fine is proportional to the environmental damage caused."

The well is part of the Chevron-operated Frade project, located 3,800 feet (1,200 meters) underwater, 230 miles (370 kilometers) off the northeastern coast of Rio de Janeiro state.

The agency said that ships in the area were working to disperse the oil and move it away from the Brazilian shore and that their efforts were being aided by prevailing weather conditions.

In the past few years, Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras and others made massive offshore oil discoveries thought to hold at least 50 billion barrels of oil, making them the biggest finds in the Western hemisphere in 30 years.

There has been virtually no debate in Brazil about the dangers drilling offshore poses, unlike in the U.S., where debate about the dangers of drilling were pitched even before last year's spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Brazilian politicians are in a fierce battle to decide how to divide up the future oil royalties among states, with little talk about the potentially damaging effects of drilling.

____

Associated Press writer Bradley Brooks in Rio de Janeiro contributed to this report.

Comments

[nofoolsteaforme]

12:34 PM on 11/18/2011

Our dependence on oil is the biggest threat to our nation according to top millitary stategists.
Our dependence on oil is the biggest threat to the health of our planet.
Our dependence on oil is one of the biggest threats to our long term economy.
Our dependence on oil is a disaster.
We should go after developing every perpetual source of energy with the zeal of the 1960's space program. Wind solar tidal etc etc.
No NUKES no one can make the waste safe for the 10,000 year life span.

[rodgray50]

09:37 AM on 11/18/2011

FLASH! Greedy oil companies supply energy which makes our way of life possible.

[walt1944]

08:42 AM on 11/18/2011

They will probably get more answers than we did with BP and the Gulf oil spill!

[uncutroseoftx]

06:11 AM on 11/18/2011

Greedy Oil companies need to be held accounted for they're actions.....Gunn Oil of Wichta Falls Tx works laws (rule 37) to steal oil from under peoples land.if you don't sign a lease with them law 37 lets 'em steal the oil anyway,and nothin you can do.Becareful who you do business with. Google search gunn oil / james day

[walt1944]

08:46 AM on 11/18/2011

Meanwhile, you have the Repubs wanting to hand over all our national park land and coastline to BIG OIL so they can "DRILL, BABY, DRILL!"!

[uncutroseoftx]

09:21 AM on 11/18/2011

Thats right, but it's the little greedy oil companys stealing for hard working people .Rule 37 gives 'em the right to steal oil from under your land and not pay you for it. As long as it's not for commercial use.Try and prove that one. The laws are in favor of the greedy little oil company's like Gunn oil of Wichta Falls tx,that become BIG Greedy oil company's.......

[Bill Reeder]

01:31 AM on 11/18/2011

 OSE II eliminates the use of antiquated inafective dispersants response. This document attempts to show why a responsible party would not want to ever use dispersants. Some countries have used dispersants due to the fact they had no idea OSE II exists. OSE II as you can now understand converts oil/hydrocarbons to CO 2 and water rapidly eliminating the time a toxic oil/fuel/hydrocarbon can have toxicological effects on the environment, especially water. The reason you clean up a spill is to reduce the toxicity to the environment in order, for even singled celled organisms to be able to survive. So once there is a spill you want to decrease the toxicity to the environment as soon as possible, hence OSE II. Through numerous tests globally no product has ever come within 80 % of the effectiveness of OSE II, and this is comparing all other bioremediation products in the world. So OSE II is the most efficient means in the world to clean up oil/fuel/hydrocarbons, reducing the toxicity of the spill faster, and more completely than any other means.
   Dispersants have to sink roughly 45% of the oil in less than 30 minutes to be considered an effective dispersant, This is dispersants mode of action, sinking oil. As the world has learned with the Gulf spill sinking the oil adds no benefit to the spill clean up. There is no reason to use toxic dispersants when the safe non toxic preferred response with OSE II.

[mac2jr]

12:08 AM on 11/18/2011

"More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one -- not industry, not government -- is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows."

"The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing."

"The AP investigation uncovered particular concern with 3,500 of the neglected wells -- those characterized in federal government records as "temporarily abandoned."

Regulations for temporarily abandoned wells require oil companies to present plans to reuse or permanently plug such wells within a year, but the AP found that the rule is routinely circumvented, and that more than 1,000 wells have lingered in that unfinished condition for more than a decade. About three-quarters of temporarily abandoned wells have been left in that status for more than a year, and many since the 1950s and 1960s -- even though sealing procedures for temporary abandonment are not as stringent as those for permanent closures."

Ref source: Associated Press

[mac2jr]

12:04 AM on 11/18/2011

The oil spills also have an effect on the wildlife that depends on clean waters and set PH values of the waters. The Gulf of Mexico has thousands of very old and leaking wells, but this is not published by our news media in fear of 'hurting' the 'advertisers', like BP, EXXON, GULF, MOBIL, etc.. These wells date back to nearly 1900 and although many have been capped, the technology of the period did not measure up, and therefore the cements and steels are failing. We will someday see a 'dead sea' off our southern coast. Now the oil companies want to 'repeat' the crime in the cold arctic waters off the north coast of Alaska, where men and machines cannot easily go OR provide necessary cleanup in the event of another drilling rig disaster..

[mac2jr]

11:58 PM on 11/17/2011

We go after big oil because they are irresponsible and bad neighbors. There are over 1,000 oil spills per year that they are not reporting and many are not being cleaned at their expense, but at taxpayer expense, the BP and EXXON spills are two of the more famous.

Oil companies also obtain our Military protection and support in taking over countries by war and the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.

Oil companies are responsible for ruining the lives of millions of the poor in foreign nations, and have destroyed forest, farm lands, wetlands, and sea shores.

Their product when burned is more deadly than smoking cigarettes and has killed millions over the last 110 years.

So, yes, we should 'PICK' on the oil companies, they are killers.

See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/o1O7VZ

[Andrew Harvey]

12:49 AM on 11/18/2011

You pick on oil companies because you like to bite the hand that feeds you.

You're lifestyle would not be possible without the fuel and petrochemicals that the oil industry provides. We'd still be getting to work on horseback and whittling our keyboards out of ivory tusks had it not been for oil.

News flash: Twice the oil on the Exxon Valdez seeps into the gulf of mexico every year from NATURAL seepage. The gulf is not the only place this happens, its widely known that the coast of California has several natural seepage points, the largest just offshore near Santa Barbara. This has been happening for hundreds of thousands of years. The biology of the planet is adapted to it. Crude oil is 100% biodegradable, and that's the only reason we don't go to the beach and find a oil slick a foot deep.

Even if you ride a bicycle to work and heat your home with wood chips, you're still benefiting from the oil industry. You wouldn't be able to eat anything you didn't grow locally, or consume anything that wasn't mined out of the earth in you're immediate vicinity.

If you think these facts are rubbish, go out there and read up on it. You'll find they're all true.

[mac2jr]

08:59 AM on 11/18/2011

I am very familiar with the benefits of oil and the products it produces, as I am with foods and farming and the chemicals used thereto;

This does not discount the FACTS, and that is that oil companies are just that oil companies that are destroying clean water, clean air, clean land, clean lungs, and are doing great harm to most areas of the world where they operate.

Iraq was for oil, Vietnam in many ways was for oil, WWII and Pearl Harbor was for oil, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico destruction was for oil, north Africa's riots are for oil, and the list goes on. Now, yes we need oil for many things, but do we need to make 80% of those things from oil, no, as most can be produced from other materials that are not as damaging and are recyclable.

Oil is running out, or I should say CHEAP oil is running out, and eventually there will be total disaster to America when a gallon of jet fuel or a gallon of gasoline is $25 per. Thus, if we stop wasting, stop environmental destruction, and stop interdependence on oil and more to cleaner fuels and environmental friendly transportation, we will be better off than now; thus please do some reading and find it true.

[jamnjer29]

10:23 PM on 11/17/2011

And the oil companies continue to lie, as they destroy the ocean with off shore drilling.
SAFE technologies??????
Nothing is safe from these polluters.

[w12owens49]

09:57 PM on 11/17/2011

HuffPo, how did this not get on the green page? A U.S. leak, or weather related tragedy (tornados in the south killed people) always are a green threat. Why does this not fit your green guidelines?

[cbword]

09:50 PM on 11/17/2011

Drill Baby, Drill !!!

[walt1944]

08:49 AM on 11/18/2011

Wait they want to start drilling in YOUR FRONT YARD!!

[mossypond]

09:42 PM on 11/17/2011

ANOTHER oil leak??? Guess the oil companies haven't learned anything from all the other spills and leaks they've caused in the past.

Between their un-mitigated greed and the way they waste oil, it's no wonder the price of gas keeps going up.

RENEWABLE ENERGY is the ONLY solution!

[ibeyour1]

09:48 PM on 11/17/2011

Just for kicks google Shell oil spills going on right now.

[walt1944]

08:49 AM on 11/18/2011

There will NEVER be any renewable energy as long as BIG OIL has a say about it

[nofoolsteaforme]

12:42 PM on 11/18/2011

Got that right. We need to get corporate money out of Washington.

http://movetoamend.org/

[Game Changer 88]

08:58 PM on 11/17/2011

The World need to really be on Watch for "Ecological Terrorism", the illegal drug cartels and their allies are in the midst of losing all their operations and Government conspirators. Many of "Deviated Persuasions" have been organized in these conspiracies over the past years and they are also very desperate to hold on to the compromised state of many Governments and Corporations they use to cover-up their devious activities. The Company "3M" can direct Countries in need to new Technology to help clean-up Oil Spills also.

[ibeyour1]

09:56 PM on 11/17/2011

Look into Olympus. Money laundering? Japan may find out