According to Ibama, Petrobras Hides Oil Leak in Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro

Petrobras Recorded Two Oil Leaks on Platforms in Rio de Janeiro and Espírito Santo That Were Not Communicated to the Market.

According to Ibama, there were failures in the containment of damage caused by two oil spills at sea this year, involving two Petrobras platforms. One of the leaks occurred in February at the P-58 platform, 85 kilometers off the coast of Espírito Santo, and the other happened at the P-53 platform, located in Arraial do Cabo, in Rio de Janeiro. This week, there were rumors that the state-owned company would be privatized, the government denied the misunderstanding and stated that there is no intention to privatize the company.

In the leak that occurred at the P-53 platform, the state oil company concealed the oil spill by failing to communicate it to the market and reported to the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources a spilled volume much lower than what actually occurred.

Ibama states that in both occurrences there were conditions for collecting the spilled oil, which did not happen. The failures were omitted. In recent days, the technical staff of the agency informed the Ministry of the Environment (MMA) of what occurred.

According to what was reported by Ibama to the ministry, an oil spill occurred at P-53 on March 25 of this year. Initially, the spilled volume reported by the state-owned company was 1,700 liters. Later, the calculated volume reached 122,000 liters, according to information from Ibama.

An investigation report on the accident states that the oil containment and recovery action was only put into practice two days after the accident.

In this case, no market communication was made by Petrobras. The publicly traded state-owned company needs to inform its shareholders about relevant facts, as it did in the accident involving the P-58 platform in Espírito Santo.

The communication was released on the same day, stating that the initially estimated spilled volume was 188,000 liters.

The leak at P-58, on February 23 of this year, created an oil slick that extended over 2.4 kilometers. Petrobras reported that there was no collection of the spilled oil, which would have evaporated.

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