Foz do Amazonas: Ibama recommends denying license to Petrobras – 04/28/2023 – Environment

An internal opinion from Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) recommends that the body deny the environmental license for Petrobras to explore oil in Foz do Amazonas.

The document was signed on the 20th, in response to an extensive opinion by the institute’s technical team, which analyzes the oil company’s request to carry out drilling in the soil — the initial stage, before commercially extracting oil and exploiting the fossil resource in Large scale.

It is also up to its president, Rodrigo Agostinho, to make the final decision on the matter.

As shown to SheetPetrobras has been pressing for the release of the license for the activities in Foz do Amazonas, even against positions from Ibama.

At the end of January of this year, the institute issued a technical opinion in which it concluded that “complementary information and additional measures are necessary for the continuation of the environmental licensing process”.

The conclusion brings a series of considerations, among them the absence of a strategic environmental assessment, that is, that makes an analysis of the environmental impacts of the activity for the potentially affected region.

In a demonstration on the 21st, attached to the licensing process, Petrobras argues that the drilling phase is only preliminary, of short duration and to verify the existence of an underground reserve.

The company defends in the document that, as the environmental impacts would only happen in the following phases of the operation —such as the installation of bases and the extraction of oil itself—, they should not be considered at this time of licensing.

“The most comprehensive socio-environmental transformations may become a reality in the production and disposal phase”, says the company.

Ibama alleges the absence of an environmental assessment of the sedimentary area, called AAAS. Petrobras argues, in turn, that the study is not mandatory and that it filed others that demonstrate the viability of the undertaking.

Now, in the new manifestation, Ibama refers precisely to the absence of the AAAS and also evaluates the oil modeling study presented by Petrobras.

The organ’s technical note, revealed by the Sumaúma website and obtained by Sheet“concludes that inconsistencies remain in the environmental study and suggests the rejection of the environmental license and the shelving of this environmental licensing process”.

The opinion cites precisely the absence of the AAAS as an important obstacle for the license, since the potential impact of the undertaking is great and that the analysis would be important because it is a new front for the exploration of Brazilian natural resources —this would be the first since such activity would be released in the region.

“Among the inconsistencies listed in this opinion, the following stand out: the failure to present specific measures in the social communication plan for indigenous communities; […] the finding of environmental impacts not foreseen in the EIA [estudo de impacto ambiental] and without mitigating measures prepared in a reasoned manner and subject to verification of effectiveness; and significant deficiencies in the fauna protection plan, part of the enterprise’s individual emergency plan”, says the technical note.

Ibama also says that the project has “inconsistencies identified successively”, “notorious socio-environmental sensitivity” and “a latent need to prepare broader and more in-depth assessments to attest to the adequacy of the production chain of the oil and gas industry in the region”.

The indication of archiving the process, made by the technical team, however, is rejected by Ibama’s substitute licensing director, Régis Fontana Pinto.

The board says it “does not disagree” with the positions of its technical team, but recommends that the process not yet be shelved.

In an order signed this Thursday (27), the instance understands that it is necessary to give Petrobras the opportunity to “present other improvements in response to the logistical difficulties for the implementation” of the enterprise.

_{The Planeta em Transe project is supported by the Open Society Foundations.}