Foz do Amazonas: Minister wants conciliation on oil – 08/24/2023 – Environment

The Minister of Mines and Energy, Alexandre Silveira, defended this Thursday (24) the creation of a conciliation table between government agencies on the progress in oil exploration in Foz do Amazonas, as proposed by the Attorney General’s Office (AGU). ).

The defense took place after the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, stated the day before in Congress that “there is no conciliation for technical issues”, citing a refusal by Ibama to explore oil in the region of Foz do Amazonas, which is part of the Equatorial Margin, region with high oil potential.

“We want to believe in dialogue, I think that was at first the minister’s manifestation, this table does have to exist, not least because, when any Minister of State can autonomously, in isolation, say that he does not dialogue anymore, there is something wrong, he left government, to be an individual decision”, said Silveira, in an interview with TV BandNews.

The AGU proposed the conciliation table this week after rebutting in an opinion one of Ibama’s main arguments for having denied, in May, a license for Petrobras to drill a well in the Foz Basin of the Amazon River, where there are enormous socio-environmental challenges.

In public statements in Brasilia, Marina was against the conciliation table.

“I cannot put Anvisa in a conciliation round by political decision to decide whether that medicine is toxic or not. The same thing is the technical licensing processes at Ibama”, said the minister.

In response to Marina’s statement, Silveira said this Thursday that “there is convergence” with the minister’s speech and that “decisions must be technical… and are being technical”.

“It is up to Ibama now, technically, to advance… in the licensing process”, stated the minister.

In its opinion, the AGU stated that an AAAS (Environmental Assessment of Sedimentary Areas) is not indispensable and cannot prevent the carrying out of environmental licensing for oil and gas exploration and production projects in Brazil.

Ibama, in its May decision, had linked a future decision on any exploration in the region to the carrying out of an AAAS, a study that covers the entire region of possible exploration to be carried out by the Ministries of the Environment and Mines and Energy, which measures socio-environmental impacts.

For the AGU, however, the environmental viability of an enterprise must be attested in the licensing itself, and not through an AAAS. The understanding, according to the body, was recognized in manifestations of the legal areas of federal bodies linked to the matter, and was also adopted by the STF (Federal Supreme Court) in recent judgments.

“I want to believe… in common sense, in conciliation, I think that the AGU is an extremely qualified body to carry out mediation”, stated the minister.

Also the day before, the Ministry of the Environment said in a note that Ibama’s refusal to advance exploration in the region had occurred because of “inconsistencies in the information provided by the company” and not because of the absence of an AAAS.

With the mediation, the AGU stated that it seeks a consensual resolution of the other divergent points related to the case, including those raised by Ibama in the denial of the licensing on the impacts of overflights for the indigenous communities and the fauna protection plan.

Petrobras also said in a note this week that it is “fully willing” to collaborate with the conciliation process forwarded by the AGU.