After a five-year campaign, the Brazilian state-owned oil company Petrobras has secured permission to drill for oil in Block 69, 160 kilometres off the coast of Amapá state and just 500 kilometres from the mouth of the Amazon River.
The company said it would begin immediately and that exploratory drilling should last around five months, the Guardian reports. with oil and gas production expected within seven years if large reserves are confirmed. Petrobras plans to drill six additional wells in the region, telling Reuters that obtaining a license should be easier now that most environmental requirements have already been met.
Brazilian NGO Climate Observatory disagrees, telling the Guardian that civil society organisations would challenge the decision in court on the basis of “illegalities and technical flaws” in the licensing process.
At several points through the process, pressure from Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pushed things in favour of Petrobras. Oil revenues, Lula insists, will fund Brazil’s climate transition – a devil’s bargain condemned by environmentalists.
[See more: Brazilian legislature approves controversial environment bill]
When Petrobras appealed a 2023 decision by the Instituto Brasileiro do Meio Ambiente e dos Recursos Naturais Renováveis (Ibama), denying them an exploration license, Lula characterised the federal environmental watchdog as a government agency acting as if it was “against the government.”
In February, more than two dozen Ibama technical staff signed an opinion holding firm on their recommendation against awarding the license, highlighting the risk of “massive biodiversity loss in a highly sensitive marine ecosystem.” Three months later, Ibama head Rodrigo Agostinho overruled the opinion, clearing the way for Petrobras to stage an oil spill accident response drill, considered the final step before licensing.
The agency then approved the pre-operational environmental assessment in September, despite Petrobras failing to demonstrate it can “reliably protect fauna in the event of an oil spill.” Ibama said a new fauna simulation would take place “after the license is issued,” allowing the oil giant to begin exploratory drilling in an area the February opinion characterised as very challenging due to intense storms and strong ocean currents.
“The approval sabotages the COP and goes against the role of climate leader claimed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on the international stage,” Brazil’s NGO coalition Climate Observatory told the Guardian. “The decision is disastrous from an environmental, climate, and sociobiodiversity perspective.”
