Oil: Lula wants research for exploration in Amazonas – 09/11/2023 – Environment

In a press conference after the end of the G20 summit, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) defended Brazil’s right to research the feasibility of oil and gas exploration on the equatorial margin, an area in the northern region of the country.

“Brazil will not stop researching the equatorial margin”, he said, and added that the country will do what it understands to be its “sovereign interest”.

“If we find the wealth that is assumed to be there, then it is a State decision whether we are going to explore it or not.”

The statement contrasts with Lula’s defense in international forums, including the G20, of reducing the use of fossil fuels and investing in renewable sources.

Exploration on the equatorial margin is the subject of dispute between the government’s environmental and energy departments. The Foz do Amazonas basin is considered by the oil sector to be part of the solution to renew Brazilian reserves with the beginning of the decline in pre-salt production in the next decade.

The AGU (General Attorney’s Office of the Union) and the Ministry of Mines and Energy have already spoken out in favor of advancing prospecting in the so-called block 59, at the request of Petrobras. However, there is opposition from the Ministry of the Environment, which fears the impacts of the activity. Minister Marina Silva is one of the main critics of the possibility of oil exploration in the region.

In the same interview, Lula preached the use of renewable fuels as a way to combat climate change, despite insisting on Brazil’s right to explore oil on the equatorial margin.

The Brazilian president celebrated the launch of the Global Biofuels Alliance, led by Brazil, India and the United States. “Finally the world is realizing that biofuels can solve the problem of emissions of pollutants and petroleum products,” he said. “We can teach other countries how to produce (ethanol) so we can clean up the planet with clean fuel.”

Lula celebrated the fact that the G20 had managed to reach a joint statement, despite differences between the countries due to the war in Ukraine. “This war is already tiring humanity, tiring Russian and Ukrainian refugees, and we will not bring new victims,” ​​he said.

The document’s main obstacle was the insistence of rich countries on including a strong condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine. With the retreat of the G7 countries, the document rejected the war, but without naming Russia.

The Brazilian government argues that Russia and Ukraine sit down to negotiate peace, while Europeans and Americans believe that Moscow must first fulfill preconditions such as the return of occupied territories.

According to Lula, who celebrated Brazil’s action in mediating the G20 document, he is being successful in his mission to return the country to international geopolitics. “Brazil was missing in the political discussions of this world,” he said. “The Celso [Amorim, assessor internacional da Presidência]with 60 years of Itamaraty, and Mauro [Vieira, chanceler] They have never seen the world in such need of Brazil as it is now.”