Oil Project Near Amazon River mouth Blocked By Brazil’s Environment Agency

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — Brazil’s environmental regulator refused to issue a license for a contentious offshore oil drilling project near the mouth of the Amazon River on Wednesday, prompting environmentalists who had warned of the project’s possible impact to rejoice.

The decision to reject Petrobras’ request to drill in the FZA-M-59 block was taken “as a result of a number of technical inconsistencies,” according to the agency’s president, Rodrigo Agostinho, who emphasized environmental concerns.

With Brazil’s current output projected to peak in the coming years, Petrobras has attempted to acquire additional reserves off the country’s northern coast. The area received nearly half the company’s $6 billion exploration expenditure during five years.

According to CEO Jean-Paul Prates, the first well will be temporary, and the company has never documented a leak in offshore drilling. The corporation was unable to persuade the environmental agency.

“There is no doubt that Petrobras was given every opportunity to improve critical aspects of its project,” Agostinho stated in his conclusion.

The area is home to little-studied tracts of mangroves and a coral reef, and campaigners and academics have warned that the project could cause leaks that would endanger the sensitive environment.

Eighty civil society and environmental organizations, including WWF Brasil and Greenpeace, had requested revoking the license pending a thorough investigation.

Some members of his Workers’ Party still believe that oil will assure social improvement.

“Agostinho is protecting a virtually unknown ecosystem and maintains the coherence of the Lula government, which has promised in its discourse to be guided by the fight against the climate crisis,” stated the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental non-profits, in a statement.

Huge offshore discoveries supported health, education, and welfare programs during Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first presidential terms, from 2003 to 2010. Some members of his Workers’ Party still believe that oil will assure social improvement.

According to Energy Minister Alexandre Silveira, the area represents the “passport to the future” for development in Brazil’s northern region. Lula previously used the same terminology to describe offshore oil discoveries in a region known as pre-salt.

But Lula has worked hard to demonstrate his environmental awakening in the years following, making Amazon protection a centerpiece of his campaign last year to beat Jair Bolsonaro and reclaim the presidency.

Activists and academics had warned that approving the offshore oil project would endanger the natural world and tarnish Lula’s newfound reputation as an environmental protector.

Some members of his Workers’ Party still believe that oil will assure social improvement.

At the request of BP Energy do Brasil, obtaining an environmental license for the FZA-M-59 block began in 2014. Petrobras received exploration rights in 2020.

Surely Araujo, a former head of the environment department who is now a public policy specialist with the Climate Observatory, believes Agostinho made the right decision for the country as a whole.

“The decision in this case opens the door to a broader discussion about the role of oil in the country’s future.” “It is time to establish a timeline for the elimination of fossil fuels and accelerate the just transition for oil exporting countries like Brazil, rather than opening a new exploration frontier,” Arajo said. “Those who sleep today dreaming of oil wealth tend to wake up tomorrow with a stranded asset, an ecological disaster, or both.”

Other contentious Amazon megaprojects that remain on the table include:

• Repaving a highway that would cut through the protected rainforest.
• Building a huge railway for grain delivery.
• Renewing the license for a massive hydropower dam.

SOURCE – (AP)