Marina Silva: decision against Petrobras license will be respected

The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva, said this Tuesday (23) that the federal government will respect the decision of the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) to reject Petrobras’ request to carry out offshore drilling activities in the Foz do Rio Amazonas basin, between Pará and Amapá. The license was officially denied last week, and the case generated great political repercussions, with criticism from government allies, such as Senator Randolfe Rodrigues (Rede-AP), leader of the government in the Senate.

Petrobras’ objective was to assess the existence of oil deposits on the coast of Amapá, near the mouth of the Amazon River, which could generate investments and payment of royalties to the state in the future.

“Ibama’s opinion, considering the unanimous position of ten technicians who analyzed the request for a license to drill an exploratory well, was contrary. From now on, what is established is compliance with the law”, said the minister, after meeting with the chief minister of the Civil House, Rui Costa, at the Planalto Palace. She was accompanied by the president of Ibama, Rodrigo Agostinho.

According to Marina Silva, the technical team that prepared the opinion understood that Petrobras did not present an environmental assessment of the sedimentary area (AAAS). This assessment, provided for in an ordinance that has been in force since 2012, allows identifying areas where it would not be possible to carry out oil and gas extraction and production activities due to the serious risks and associated environmental impacts.

“It is a technical decision, and the technical decision in a republican and democratic government is carried out and respected, based on evidence. It was a meeting precisely to bring evidence. , involving licensing processes, will have to comply with this requirement, which was established by the government itself in 2012”.

mangroves and parks

According to the president of Ibama, the research area requested by Petrobras is 189 kilometers from the municipality of Oiapoque, in Amapá, and around 900 kilometers from Belém, where the exploration logistics base would be set up. The region has extremely delicate environmental complexity to prove the viability of an oil exploration project.

“We have in that region three indigenous lands, two national parks, we have 80% of the mangrove areas in the country. We have the water currents of the Amazon River itself and the marine currents of the north of the country. A region (in) that is not easy to prove the viability”, he said.

Agostinho pointed out that there was no pressure to grant the license and that the environmental agency will continue to act in a technical manner.

“Ibama will continue to carry out its technical environmental work of assessing the viability, or not. We have already issued, this year, 23 licenses to Petrobras – these licenses have proven environmental viability. In this specific case, for the region called Foz do Amazonas, for a series of technical reasons, Ibama did not grant it”, said Agostinho.

new license

Still according to Agostinho, Ibama asked Petrobras for eight additions and, even so, they were not enough to test the viability of the project. Despite the denied license, Petrobras can file a new request, which will be analyzed from scratch.

“If a license is denied, it is denied. The entrepreneur has the right to present it as many times as he wants, and it will be analyzed. It is a process that will start from zero, if another license is presented”, said Marina Silva.

Petrobras

The environmental licensing process for the Foz do Amazonas Basin block, technically called FZA-M-59, began on April 4, 2014, at the request of BP Energy do Brasil, the company originally responsible for the project. In December 2020, oil exploration rights in the block were transferred to Petrobras.

In a note, last week, Petrobras stated that it was surprised by the decision and that the conditions originally posed by Ibama were fully met. The company also stated that the institute had recognized that there was no legal basis for charging an environmental assessment as a condition for issuing an operating license for drilling.

The company also said that, in September 2022, Ibama signaled that the only pending issue for carrying out the pre-operational assessment would be the presentation of the operating license for the Fauna Rehabilitation Center in Belém and inspections of the drilling rig and vessels of support.

According to the note, Ibama inspected and approved the depetrolization and fauna rehabilitation center in February 2023. Petrobras also said that the response time for assisting the fauna, in the event of a leak, meets the requirements established in the Good Practices Manual of Ibama for the management of fauna affected by oil and that the license in question is restricted to the drilling of a well with the objective of verifying the “existence or not of an oil deposit on the Equatorial Margin”.

“Therefore, only after drilling this well will the potential of the asset, the existence and profile of any deposit be confirmed. Petrobras only applied for the license to drill the well and, for that, presented all the necessary studies and projects. In case of confirmation of the potential of the reserve, another licensing process will be carried out”, says the note.