Oil at the mouth of the Amazon can be success or terror – 05/27/2023 – Vinicius Torres Freire

There is a risk that oil exploration in the basin at the mouth of the Amazon will contaminate the Brazilian sea, the Caribbean and the coast, whether there are accidents or not. Less is said about the case of exploration yielding a lot of oil and, even without accidents, a socio-environmental disaster occurs on the mainland of Amapá.

Taking into account Petrobras’ environmental history and the history of Brazil, what is the greatest risk? Besides, what does the country have to gain from more or less oil?

Oil will go into disuse. For many people, limiting the exploration and use of fossil fuels is for now. But what would be the economic useful life of the fields at the mouth of the Amazon or others on the Equatorial Margin, from Amapá to Rio Grande do Norte? Five, ten, fifteen years?

We do not have extensive reflection and studies on the total cost and benefit of this oil exploration. That is, the balance of economic, technological, social and environmental impacts. The increase in oil production may even serve to straighten out the government’s accounts, changing the macroeconomic scenario somewhat at the end of the decade.

How and to what extent could the government intervene (in a decent way) in an issue that is the subject of environmental regulation and business decisions? It is a crucial topic, treated narrowly. Lula 3 should lead the discussion of large-scale plans for the oil issue.

We don’t know how much exploitable oil there is in the mouth of the Amazon basin, the sea that faces Amapá and Marajó Island, in Pará; from Oiapoque to Belém.

Ibama did not give Petrobras a license to drill a pioneer well 175 km off the coast of Amapá and 560 km from the mouth of the Amazon (the wells in the Santos basin are up to 300 km from the coast). Perhaps the basin could yield 1 million barrels a day in 2029.

Oil production in Brazil in 2022 was 3 million barrels per day, almost 98% offshore (gas numbers are not included, for simplicity). In the first quarter of 2023, there were 3.2 million. The peak of production would be in 2029, with 5.4 million, if there are no new firm discoveries. These are projections by the Energy Planning Company (EPE, public).

ExxonMobil discovered oil in Guyana (formerly “English Guiana”) in 2015, in a geological region similar to the Amapá Sea. Production started at 1,000 barrels per day in 2019. In the first quarter of 2023, it reached 376,000 barrels per day, according to the Guyana government. The expectation is 1 million barrels per day in 2029.

Guyana, one of the poorest countries on the continent, is growing at over 20% a year. In the middle income, at least, will be one of the richest soon. The population, of 795 thousand inhabitants, is similar in numbers to that of Amapá (877 thousand).

Almost half of Amapá is poor. The per capita household income of 49.4% of the population is less than R$ 665 per month, according to the Jones dos Santos Neves Institute, of the government of Espírito Santo. In Brazil, 33% are poor.

With 1 million barrels per day, it would rain money in Amapá and, in part, in Pará. The state lives on extractivism, mining. About 72% of the state area consists of conservation units and indigenous or quilombola lands.

Suppose the money were put to good use, on low-impact economic infrastructure, social improvement, etc. Even so, the state would attract many immigrants from poor neighborhoods in the North and Northeast.

Would it be possible to stop a socio-environmental disaster caused by higher income? See the history of the big “rich” Brazilian cities, unmanageable, which swelled with immigrants in the outskirts of horrible living conditions, people who fled from the interior where they were left without school, health, land, electricity and even without voting, courtesy of cruelty and national violence, the final work of the military dictatorship and associated civil slayers.

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