Brazil’s environmental protection agency has required state-held oil and gas giant Petrobras to conduct a series of studies on how its plan to drill in an environmentally sensitive area offshore the mouth of the Amazon River would impact indigenous communities.
In recent weeks, the agency, Ibama, has sent the requests to Petrobras, asking it to carry out studies on the “social, cultural and environmental” impact its plan to drill would have, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing the documents it had seen .
Petrobras has met the previous requests for impact assessment and is open to including new studies that may be required, the company has said and has noted in the past that its plan to explore for oil and gas in the area would have “no direct impact” on the local communities.
The request for more impact assessment studies could prolong the timing to a possible start to drilling in the Amazon.
The Equatorial Margin offshore Brazil, which includes Foz do Amazonas, Pará-Maranhão, and Barreirinhas basins, is estimated to hold large oil and gas reserves and is expected to share geology similar to that of Guyana’s offshore, where Exxon is finding billions of barrels of oil and has developed and is developing half a dozen projects.
Petrobras is now re-evaluating its portfolio in search of synergies and diversification and is looking at new frontiers in exploration, especially in the Equatorial Margin offshore Brazil, CEO Jean Paul Prates said in an investor presentation in January.
Petrobras currently doesn’t have permission from regulators to drill for oil and gas in the environmentally sensitive area.
Last year, the environmental protection agency refused to grant approval for the controversial offshore oil project in the Foz do Amazonas area in the Equatorial Margin where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic.
Petrobras has appealed the decision of the environmental protection agency.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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