Chevron e MPF acertam pagamento de R$ 311 milhões por vazamentos de petróleo no Campo de Frade

 

Publicado em dezembro 17, 2012 por HC

Tags: danos ambientais, desastre ambiental

 

O Ministério Público Federal (MPF) no Rio de Janeiro e a empresa petrolífera Chevron chegaram a um acordo no valor de um Termo de Ajustamento de Conduta (TAC) pelos vazamentos de óleo ocorridos em uma sonda de perfuração, no Campo de Frade, na Bacia de Campos, em novembro de 2011 e março de 2012. A informação foi divulgada hoje (14), durante audiência pública ocorrida na sede do MPF sobre as consequências do derramamento, com objetivo de construir a minuta do TAC.

O documento, que ainda vai ser assinado, vai garantir à petrolífera a troca de duas ações de R$ 20 bilhões, cada uma, calculadas pelo MPF à época dos vazamentos. Parte do dinheiro ajustado no TAC, cerca de R$ 90 milhões, será usada exclusivamente na recuperação do ambiente marinho e deverá ser gerida pela organização não governamental Fundo Brasileiro para a Biodiversidade (Funbio). Os cerca de R$ 220 milhões restantes, serão aplicados em medidas de prevenção a futuros desastres ambientais, incluindo a manutenção permanente, nos locais de perfuração, de um navio especializado em retirada de óleo do mar.

A procuradora da República Gisele Porto, responsável pela área de Meio Ambiente e Patrimônio Cultural, considerou que a assinatura do TAC será um recado positivo a toda cadeia petrolífera, de que é melhor investir em prevenção do que arcar com prejuízos por eventuais casos de poluição. “Se chegarmos a medidas compensatórias e a medidas que melhorem a segurança operacional, será um benefício para todos. Porque a decisão vem agora e não daqui a anos, representando um marco para a atividade [petrolífera]”, disse a procuradora.

O diretor de Assuntos Corporativos da Chevron Brasil, Rafael Jaen Williamson, confirmou que a empresa aceitará arcar com o valor do TAC e reconheceu que os episódios deixaram lições para a companhia, como a necessidade de se investir mais em comunicação e segurança. “Nós estamos dispostos a aplicar esses recursos em projetos de desenvolvimento social e ambiental e medidas compensatórias e preventivas”, declarou.

Segundo ele, os cálculos da empresa para a magnitude do vazamento – tomando por base desastres ambientais internacionais maiores e os respectivos valores arbitrados em multas – seriam bem mais modestos, de R$ 30 milhões. Mesmo assim, a empresa aceita pagar dez vezes mais, para encerrar o processo e por acreditar que isso representa uma contribuição ao meio ambiente e à sociedade brasileira.
O superintendente de Segurança Operacional e Meio Ambiente da Agência Nacional do Petróleo, Gás Natural e Biocombustível (ANP), Raphael Neves Moura, acompanhou a audiência pública, e disse que a Chevron deverá voltar a explorar petróleo no país até março de 2013.

“Neste momento existe um grupo de condicionantes para que a Chevron restabeleça um ambiente regulatório seguro e volte a operar no Brasil. A partir de agora, a agência começa a desencadear uma série de ações de fiscalização, a bordo da plataforma da Chevron e da sonda da Transocean [empresa que opera a perfuração] e na sede da empresa, onde coletará documentos e informações complementares, com vista a evidenciar se essas condicionantes foram implementadas. Eu acredito que, no primeiro trimestre do ano que vem, tenhamos um resultado desse processo. É possível que a empresa esteja apta a voltar a operar no país até março do ano que vem”, declarou o superintendente da ANP.

A Chevron foi responsável pelo vazamento estimado pela ANP em 3,7 mil barris de óleo, em novembro de 2011, no Campo de Frade. Em março novos vazamentos, em proporções bem menores, ocorreram no mesmo local. Eles foram decorrentes do excesso de pressão aplicada na perfuração dos poços, o que provocou rachaduras nas rochas do leito oceânico, por onde vazou o óleo.
Reportagem de Vladimir Platonow, da Agência Brasil, publicada pelo EcoDebate, 17/12/2012

Want the good news first? >>> NYTimes

by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN for The New York Times.

“From a biological perspective, we know what
happens when oil hits the beach. We can see those impacts; we can mitigate those impacts; we can quantify those impacts,” said Keith Ouchley, the biologist who leads the Nature Conservancy in Louisiana. “What we don’t know are the biological impacts that occur as that oil is dispersed through the deep water columns under the ocean’s surface. We don’t know what it is doing or affecting today or in the future. There is very little experience with this scale of spill at these depths in such a biologically productive system as this.”

"Want the good news first?"
This article was written by THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN for The New York Times.
Read the full article here

Deepwater Horizon: 11 mortes, milhões de litros de óleo lançados no mar, despesas diarias de U$ 100 milhões para limpeza da sujeira e provavelmente o algoz da BP.

China compra campo para explorar petróleo na Bacia de Campos /// Asia Times

Ao longo dos meses diversos artigos sobre a presença chinesa cada vez mais intensa ao nosso redor e mesmo dentro do Brasil.Veja os artigos:

http://sendosustentavel.blogspot.com/2010/04/sinal-de-atencao-deslocalizacao.html

http://sendosustentavel.blogspot.com/2010/04/china-negocia-terras-para-soja-e-milho.html



Primeiro as ações para compra de terras no Mato Grosso para produção de alimentos  e  agora os chineses  adquirem parte do campo Peregrino. A companhia norueguesa Statoil vendeu sua participação aos chineses por 3 bilhões U$ assim os chineses  passarão a explorar petroleo aqui na nossa costa.


Leia abaixo a materia publicada no Asia Times/The Jamestown Foundation


China drills deeper into Latin America

By Russell Hsiao

Norwegian oil company Statoil announced on May 21 that it agreed to sell to Chinese state-owned Sinochem Group a 40% stake (US$3 billion) of the Peregrino field located in the Campos basin offshore of Brazil. The Peregrino announcement closely follows the disclosure in March that another major Chinese state-owned oil company, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), was acquiring 50% ($3.1 billion) of a joint venture with Argentina's Bridas Energy Holdings Ltd.

While the two transactions are still subject to their respective governments' approval, these agreements highlight the renewed focus of Chinese activities on Latin America, markedly raising China's stakes and profile in the region. The apparent surge of Chinese interests in the region demonstrated by the raft of recent deals also laid bare Beijing’s geopolitical strategy to assure a diversified energy supply and evolving strategic partnership with Latin America.

In Brazil, according to the Chinese Communist Party-owned Global Times, China Development Bank (CDB), China Petroleum and Chemical Corporation (Sinopec) and Brazilian state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) signed an "oil-for-loan" agreement that stipulates that Petrobas will be committed to a 10-year oil supply (of roughly 200,000 barrels of oil per year) to Sinopec in exchange for $10 billion worth of loans from the CDB within the next 10 years.

In Argentina, CNOOC president Yang Hua commented, "Bridas, with a world-class oil and gas asset portfolio, is a very good beachhead for us [CNOOC] to enter Latin America. Through this transaction, we'll establish a fair presence in this region, which will further enable the company's production and reserve growth in the future." Bridas also has exploration and production operations in Bolivia and Chile, and according to a CNOOC statement filed with Hong Kong’s stock exchange, it owns 40% of Pan American Energy LLC, an affiliate of BP Plc. (Business Week, March 14).

In Venezuela, China agreed in April to extend $20 billion of loans to Caracas, with the payment terms being $10 billion and 70 billion yuan ($10.25 billion). China and Venezuela will reportedly form a joint venture to operate the Junin-4 Block located in the Orinoco heavy oil belt, which is expected to yield 2.9 billion barrels of extra-heavy crude over the 25-year contract term. According to Wang Peng, a Latin America researcher at the prestigious Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the significance of the loan is that, "The 70 billion yuan fund will be a trial to internationalize the yuan. Given the large oil reserves and oil potential, the settlement of the deal in yuan will raise the Chinese currency’s position in oil trade."

In order to reduce its vulnerability to high oil prices, China has intensified its courting of Latin America as one of its three major regional energy suppliers (the others being Russia/Central Asia and the Middle East/Africa). While China's energy imports from Latin America lag in comparison to such imports from other regions, China's substantial commitments in Argentina, Brazil and other areas are strong indicators of the push to come.

As these recent cases also demonstrate, China's presence in Latin America is not confined to securing access to markets and sources of primary products. It is also strategic. Given Brazil's and Argentina's relatively sophisticated level of development in several high-technology sectors, it is not surprising to see Brasilia and Buenos Aries emerge as hubs of China's push into the region. Progress in trade, investment and political and military cooperation are usually tied to cooperation in the energy sphere. Indeed, both Brazil and Argentina possess a vibrant nuclear industry, a robust aerospace industry and a telecommunication infrastructure, among others.

Against the backdrop of the global financial crisis, Chinese activities in Latin America have become notably more pronounced. The impact that the crisis has had on Western economies cannot be understated, and the depth of China's strategic partnership with countries in the region is becoming clear as China becomes more confident and assertive in conducting its foreign policy. While it remains unknown at what cost to US interests China's strategic partnerships with Latin America will have in the long-term, it behooves Washington to engage Latin America and maintain friendships throughout the region as the power gravity slowly shifts east.

(This article first appeared in The Jamestown Foundation. Used with permission.)

Poluir o meio-ambiente destrói valor?

Desde o inicio da crise no golfo do México o valor da ação da BP despencou 24%. Perdeu 62 bilhões de dólares até o momento. E o acidente não apresenta uma solução imediata.
BP já gastou 1 bilhão de dólares e  vazamento de óleo continua. Seus numeros dizem ter folego para absorver até 20 bilhões de prejuízo e ainda distribuir 10 bilhões de dividendos. Numeros que ainda tiram o sono dos acionistas, pois ainda sem final previsto o desastre poderá trazer ações indenizatórias de individuos e empresas afetadas, cujos valores são inestimados.

Abaixo segue o artigo original publicado no The Economist;


Hole below the water


Failure to stem the flow of oil into the Gulf of Mexico spells trouble for BP

Jun 3rd 2010
From The Economist print edition

THE relief well with which BP is planning to put a definitive end to the oil spill polluting ever more of the Gulf of Mexico is drilling down into the sea floor at a rate of about 60 metres (200 feet) a day. The company’s share price is dropping considerably faster. On June 1st it plummeted by 13%. It had already declined by 24% over the six weeks since the loss of the exploration rig Deepwater Horizon and the start of the spill. All told the company has lost £42 billion ($62 billion) in value since the crisis started.

The latest drop was prompted by the news on May 29th that BP’s attempt to plug the leak with a “top kill” had failed. The company now plans to cut through the pipe from which oil is leaking and cap it with a fitting that will funnel oil to ships on the surface; it may also use equipment installed for the top kill to drain off oil. These steps may slow the flow of oil into the sea, perhaps substantially, but they will not stop it altogether, and carry a slight risk of increasing it. The funnel would also have to be removed if a hurricane were to strike.

A complete stop will have to wait for one of the two relief wells to get down to 5,500 metres, intersect with the leaking well and plug it. August is spoken of as the earliest date for this sort of success, hurricanes permitting. If numerous attempts have to be made, as they sometimes are, it is conceivable that the leak could continue for the rest of the year.

Barack Obama, under increasing criticism for his handling of the disaster, has promised to “bring those responsible to justice”. On June 1st his attorney-general, Eric Holder, visited Louisiana and announced that he was exploring both civil and criminal charges against BP and the other firms involved in the drilling. Criminal action could leave BP facing massive fines on top of the costs of the effort to stop the leak, the clean-up operations and claims for damages by companies and individuals that have been affected. So far BP has spent some $1 billion; that said, it made $6.1 billion in the first quarter of 2010. It is profitable enough to absorb $20 billion in spill-related losses while paying a $10 billion dividend, as it did last year. That would reassure anxious investors, but worry rating agencies (on June 3rd Fitch trimmed BP's ratings) and outrage politicians who want the dividend scrapped.

Robert Reich, a former secretary of labour, has suggested that BP’s American operations should be put under temporary receivership to allow the government to take control of plugging the leak. This seems unlikely. But the idea that the company as a whole might be taken over has become significantly more likely as its share price has plummeted. BP’s market capitalisation is now less than that of its rival, Royal Dutch Shell (see chart), which has discussed a merger before and may now be contemplating one again. The scale of the stock’s fall makes it possible that the foreseeable losses, huge as they are, have not only been priced in, but even overpriced.

Reputational loss, and the possibility of losing further access to the gulf, where BP is a large player, are harder to calculate while the spill and its attendant inquiries continue. When the waters finally clear, though, there could be some interesting sharks swimming in them.