Petrobras acted 6 times to delay environmental compensation – 02/04/2024 – Environment

Petrobras acted at least six times to delay the payment of environmental compensation due due to attempted oil exploration in the Foz do Amazonas basin. The project ended up abandoned after an accident, which did not cancel the compensation obligation. The original amount of the debt was R$140 thousand.

Documents obtained by Sheetsome of them through the Access to Information Law, detail the state-owned company’s delaying strategy in the years 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2021.

The offensive was successful. The process has dragged on for more than nine years, as shown in a newspaper report published on December 10. To date, the compensation has not been deposited, and the amount has been updated to R$282 thousand.

The company and the Lula government (PT) express the desire to explore another block, with the possibility of an even greater negative impact on the environment, according to a calculation by Ibama (Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), which therefore , requires the disbursement of even higher compensation: R$4.3 million.

Petrobras’ letters to try to escape payment were sent to Ibama, responsible for calculating the degree of impact of the project and defining the value of compensation, and to ICMBio (Instituto Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade), recipient of the resources.

The reasons for delaying the deposit, presented by the state-owned company, were the most diverse: lack of obligation to pay compensation in cases of drilling for oil prospecting, need for analysis by a higher hierarchical body, limitations in the internal processing of processes and disagreement with the criterion for monetary updating.

In a statement, Petrobras stated that it does not delay payment and that the allocation of the resources was defined in 2018, at the Environmental and Forestry Compensation Chamber. “Only in June 2023, Ibama defined the monetary update rate for the payment amount and, as a result, in December 2023, ICMBio made the final version of the commitment term available for signature.”

The document was signed on the 15th, according to the state-owned company. The company said that the amount will be paid in April, after publishing an updated index.

The destination of the money must be the Cabo Orange National Park, which is in the region of Oiapoque (AP). The reserve is an important and delicate conservation area for mangroves and floodplains.

The block in the Foz do Amazonas basin in question is FZA-4, which is located at a distance of 110 to 126 km off the coast of Amapá.

In December 2011, during drilling activities in the block, an accident resulted in damage to equipment and a leak of hydraulic oil. Petrobras abandoned the project once and for all in 2016 — and continued to postpone the payment of environmental compensation.

“The well remained in an absolutely safe condition at all times and there was no damage to the environment or accidents to people,” Petrobras said. “No drilling equipment was left on the seabed and any conclusion to the contrary is unfounded.”

The so-called block 59, which the state-owned company and the Lula government (PT) want to explore in 2024, is very close to FZA-4. The distance from the coast, on the Oiapoque line, is 160 to 179 km.

In May 2023, the president of Ibama, Rodrigo Agostinho, denied granting a license to drill in block 59. Petrobras appealed, and Lula is in favor of oil exploration on the Amazon coast, despite the environmental risks, criticism for the investment in fuels fossil fuels and the contradiction with plans undertaken by the government to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Report published by Sheet on Tuesday (30) showed that the degree of environmental impact of the project in block 59 reached maximum scale, with a high magnitude of negative impact, influence on biodiversity formed by species threatened with extinction and compromise of areas still unknown.

The calculation is made by Ibama, to define the value of environmental compensation. The degree of impact was calculated at 0.5%, on a scale of 0 to 0.5% — the highest value, therefore.

In the case of drilling in the FZA-4 block, the index was 0.28%, although components used in the calculation reached maximum values, such as the magnitude of potential impacts.

For the project that Petrobras and the government want to explore, Ibama defined that the environmental compensation to be paid is R$4.3 million. The value is defined by multiplying the degree of impact by the project’s reference value, informed by the state-owned company — R$859.6 million.

The mandatory compensation for the current project in the Foz do Amazonas basin is much higher than that of the previous project, whose payment Petrobras sought to avoid.

The process regarding the first compensation was opened in August 2014. In November, Petrobras sent a letter to the president of Ibama to say that the compensation, listed as a condition in the operating license, was not “appropriate”.

“Environmental compensation only applies to the implementation of projects with a significant non-mitigable environmental impact, excluding any activities related to exploratory research”, argued Petrobras in the letter.

The legal department, the licensing board and the presidency of Ibama considered the collection of compensation appropriate. There were new demonstrations from Petrobras to the environmental agency, along the same lines, in January 2016 and August 2017.

In June 2019, a draft of the term of commitment for the payment of environmental compensation was prepared, as well as a schedule for paying off the debt within 30 days. In October of that year, Petrobras asked ICMBio to suspend the process, due to “limitations in internal processing”.

In 2021, there were two new statements from the state-owned company, one requesting the suspension of deadlines and the other with disagreement over the criteria used for the monetary update of environmental compensation.

ICMBio stated that it would inform Ibama, that year, about the delay in payment, so that legal procedures could be adopted in relation to Petrobras. Cape Orange National Park remained without the money for the next two years.

Read the documents below