NGOs ask Ibama to pump oil at Foz do Amazonas – 04/12/2023 – Environment

A letter signed by 80 organizations, sent to the federal government this Wednesday (12), requests that the license requested by Petrobras to explore oil in the Foz do Amazonas sedimentary basin not be issued.

Block 59 belongs to the state-owned company, which is trying to obtain authorization from Ibama (Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) to drill in the location, which is considered environmentally sensitive.

The issue is considered even more sensitive because it has the potential to trigger a ripple effect, with exploration in dozens of other oil blocks currently offered in the basin.

The document was delivered to the Ministry of Mines and Energy, but is also addressed to the Foreign Affairs, Fisheries and Aquaculture, Indigenous Peoples and Environment and Climate Change folders, in addition to the oil company, the ANP (National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels) and Ibama.

The note states that the plan to drill new wells in search of oil and gas in the sedimentary basin of Foz do Amazonas “causes a very serious alert”. He also says that the environmental licensing of block 59, by Petrobras, has “gaps and weaknesses that compromise a robust analysis by Ibama” on the viability of the activity in the region.

The NGOs, environmental entities and associations of indigenous peoples and other traditional communities attached a technical note to the letter listing the problems they see in the case.

Among them is the absence of an environmental assessment at the regional level (Avaliação Ambiental de Área Sedimentar, known by the acronym AAAS) that considers the cumulative impacts of all the dozens of blocks offered by the ANP in the area of ​​the Brazilian equatorial margin, which will from Amapá to Rio Grande do Norte.

“The Amazon rainforest, the mouth of the Amazon River and the Atlantic Ocean in this equatorial zone, are not only a vital part of our planet’s biodiversity, but also an essential source for the lives of millions of people directly and indirectly”, says the text. . “The impacts of this activity and an eventual oil spill can cause immeasurable damage to the environment and the population.”

The letter asks that the license not be issued until there is “full technical and legal certainty for informed and precautionary decision-making”. In addition to the AAAS, they ask that public consultations be carried out with the affected communities, new studies on the hydrodynamics of the region and that the effectiveness of accident control plans with oil spills be demonstrated.

Foz do Amazonas is in the crosshairs of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, which has announced plans to scale up national production and make Brazil the fourth largest oil producer in the world — today it is the eighth, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

At the end of March, in a press release, Alexandre Silveira, who heads the portfolio, refers to the equatorial margin as a potential “new pre-salt”.

The expansion of the exploitation of fossil fuels goes against the grain of the discourse of confronting the climate crisis adopted by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). Science points out that, in order to curb climate change, it is essential that dirty energy sources occupy an increasingly smaller space in the global energy matrix.

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