Ibama News

Hundreds of dredging rafts operated by illegal miners have gathered in a gold rush on the Madeira River, a major tributary of the Amazon, floating hundreds of miles as state and federal authorities dispute who is responsible for stopping them.The flotilla of rafts equipped with pumps are moored together in lines that nearly stretch across the vast Madeira, and a Reuters witness spotted plumes of exhaust indicating they are vacuuming the riverbed for gold."We counted no less than 300 rafts.

Crude oil smudges have been spotted at some Brazilian beaches in the northeast state of Ceará, the country's navy said on Monday, almost two months after the area was hit by another oil slick.That was part of a broader spill, whose origin remains a mystery, that stained hundreds of beaches on Brazil's northeast coast between September and November, threatening marine life, tourism and fishing.The navy said samples of the new spill were being sent for analysis to a marine studies institute…

The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF) is currently on-site in north-east Brazil attending the recent oil spill that has contaminated approximately 2,500 km of coastline in nine states.The source of the pollution remains unknown, although the Brazilian government has recently reported that they suspect a tanker passing along its coast in late July as being the polluter."Our involvement was requested directly by IBAMA, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources, on 16th September 2019, a couple of weeks after oil was first spotted washing up on shore," the not-for-profit marine ship pollution response advisers said.ITOPF is normally requested on-site by a shipowner or their insurer…

A small amount of crude oil belonging to Royal Dutch Shell Plc leaked during a ship-to-ship oil transfer in Brazilian waters last month, the company confirmed to Reuters on Monday.About 200 milliliters of crude were released on Nov. 30 during the maneuver, which was halted after the drip was detected, Shell said, adding that authorities were notified and the incident left no trace of oil in the sea.However, a letter obtained by Reuters and sent to Brazilian environmental regulator…

Sea-state monitoring firm Miros Group is set to supply eight Oil Spill Detection (OSD) systems to Brazilian oil major Petrobras in the world’s largest x-band radar-based OSD surveillance and response contract to date.The agreement is in partnership with Ulstein Belga Marine, primary supplier to Petrobras, and includes radars and thermal imaging cameras for Petrobras Mobile Offshore Production Units (MOPUs) in the Campos Basin. Delivery and commissioning are scheduled for 2019.The…

Brazil has more than doubled the number of risky ship-to-ship oil transfers this year, but its monitoring of such offshore maneuvers is lax, to a point where a July 2017 collision between two tankers was not reported, according to a Reuters review of government and shipping records.Transfers are projected to keep rising as the country's deep-water discoveries have lured major companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and Royal Dutch Shell Plc to recent offshore auctions. During these maneuvers, ships pull alongside one another and oil is transferred to a vessel via high-pressure hoses.

Brazilian environmental agency Ibama on Tuesday rejected French oil company Total SA's application for an environmental license to drill in the sensitive Foz do Amazonas basin.It is the fourth time that Ibama has rejected the application and requested additional information.(Reporting by Jake Spring Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe)

Brazilian authorities plan to implement legislation to help prevent that vessels owned by exporters such as Petrobras and Vale wind up on South Asia's beaching yards, Bloomberg reported. The report said that earlier this month, authorities decided to develop a legal framework to ensure former Brazilian ships don’t end up with recyclers notorious for using dirty and dangerous methods, federal environmental watchdog Ibama said by email. Brazilian companies could face fines of as much as 10 million reais ($3.2 million) if Ibama finds they violate international standards by letting their vessels end up in substandard shipbreaking facilities in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

In an effort to spread out oil and gas production to other parts of the country and increase overall oil production, Brazil has finally intensified hydrocarbon exploration along its northeastern and northern coasts. These are some of the poorest regions in the country and infrastructure for oil and gas exploration is minimal, yet significant discoveries and seismic indicators of large reservoirs are tantalizing and have attracted major local and foreign investors. Potential for oil discoveries in the area is proven, yet players will be faced by many challenges offshore and on land in order to uncork reservoirs at the Northern Frontier.

Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA could face new production stoppages on platforms in the Campos Basin if it does not resolve lingering safety issues, the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper reported on Sunday. The company, best known as Petrobras, has improved safety standards in its offshore fields in the last two years but needs to improve "a lot"," a federal labor-law prosecutor, Mauricio Coentro, told the newspaper. If continuing problems are not resolved, platform shutdowns may be necessary, he added. The paper said there have been eight accidents since November in the Campos Basin, located east and northeast of Rio de Janeiro, where Brazil gets 80 percent of its 2.11 million barrels per day of oil output.

Chevron Corp. and Transocean Ltd. are being sued for $22 billion in environmental damages in Brazil, double initial claims, after a federal prosecutor filed a second lawsuit over oil spills off the nation’s coast, according to Bloomberg. Chevron committed “a series of errors” which led to the March spill at Frade, the second incident at the offshore oil project, the federal prosecutors’ office said yesterday. Prosecutor Eduardo Santos de Oliveira is also seeking to halt operations at Frade and block San Ramon, California- based Chevron from transferring profits from Brazil. “The oil spill at the Frade field hasn’t been contained,” Oliveira said.

Brazil's government slapped state oil giant Petrobras with a record fine of nearly $100 million on Aug 1 for causing the country's worst oil spill in 25 years in a disastrous July pipeline rupture. Environmental agency Ibama said the fine - the highest-ever imposed for damage to the ecosystem - was justified due to Petrobras' inability prevent a series of oil spills this year, considered a repeated offense by officials. Petrobras has caused four spills since January. The latest government sanctions against Petrobras came after a broken pipeline oozed a million gallons of crude down the Iguacu River in southern Brazil, contaminating ecological reserves on the banks of the river.

Petrobras moved about 200 men and 20 ships to monitor oil spilled offshore after the world's biggest rig was rocked by blasts and sank earlier this month. On March 15, three blasts ripped through Petrobras' 40-storey platform, the world's biggest oil rig, killing 11 and spilling about 11,000 gallons of diesel oil. Petrobras has mobilized 11,000 m of retaining barriers, 21 oil collecting units, 18 suction pumps and 40,000 liters of dispersing chemical agent to the platform off the coast of Rio state, the firm said in a statement. "Luckily for everybody it was not an environmental disaster," said Carlos Henrique Mendes, regional director for Brazil's state environmental institute, Ibama.

Crews managed to prevent the world's largest offshore oil rig from sinking farther into the sea on Monday, four days after explosions crippled its structure and killed 10, its Brazilian owners said. They said the 40-story platform belonging to Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras had stabilized by Monday evening after workers pumped enough water out of the submerged compartments. They are injecting nitrogen and compressed air in a bid to remove nearly 3,000 tons of water weighing down the rig. Even so, the platform was listing more than ever, at a 27-degree angle. In the last 24 hours it has sunk 1.3 feet (40 cm). The platform has sunk almost 15 feet (4.6 m) since the blasts.

after explosions sank a nearby platform, Brazil's state oil giant Petrobras said. An accident during a testing operation early on Thursday morning caused a production pipeline to spew 6,800 gallons (26,000 liters/160 barrels) of crude into the sea and forced the evacuation of most of the 143 workers aboard. They were transferred for precautionary reasons to neighboring platforms, while 37 workers from the fire and emergency brigades remained aboard the P-7 rig. No explosion, fire or injuries were reported. "The well is completely sealed and under control and we are going to take the steps to restart production," a Petrobras official said.

Petrobras put 12 offshore oil rigs back into operation on May 26 following a stoppage on two days earlier that was due to a second unexplained oil spill in a week, officials said. Petrobras resumed operations after concluding the oil in the slick was different to that produced at the rigs, a Petrobras spokesman said. "All rigs, underwater pipelines and systems are in perfect order," the spokesman said. Petrobras, which has experienced a series of oil spills in the past two years, has said production losses from the stoppage, which occurred in the northern zone of the Campos oil field, were 120,000 bpd - nearly nine percent of Brazil's overall daily output. Natural gas output losses were 830,000 cubic meters a day. A week earlier, a similar stoppage occurred in the same area.