Petrobras reports accident at Santos basin pre-salt field
By Jeff Fick, DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
RIO DE JANEIRO -(Dow Jones)- Brazilian state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras, said Tuesday that an accident at an ultra-deepwater oil field off Brazil's coast spilled an estimated 160 bbl of crude into the Atlantic Ocean.
It's another setback for Brazil's oil industry, which is gearing up to exploit massive discoveries in some of the most challenging environmental conditions on earth. Industry executives will also be keen to see the official response, given the heavy-handed response to an earlier problem in November at a field operated by Chevron Corp.
The latest spill happened at the Carioca Nordeste field, part of a cluster of oil discoveries made more than four miles deep off the coast of Brazil's Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo states. Safety systems aboard the "Dynamic Producer" FPSO, a floating production, storage and offloading vessel conducting the test, detected the rupture at 0830 local time on Tuesday, Petrobras said.
The safety systems automatically shut down the well, which remains closed and in safe condition, Petrobras said. An investigation into the incident is already under way, the company said.
Petrobras said that "there is no possibility of the oil reaching the Brazilian coast" as a result of the leak at the Carioca Nordeste field, which sits more than 300 kilometers from shore.
The accident has already been reported to oil regulators, Brazil's Navy and environmental authorities, Petrobras said. The company has already mobilized "all of the resources necessary to collect oil from the sea and residual oil from the upper part of the column."
In November, some 2,400 to 3,000 bbl of crude spilled into the Atlantic after a problem at Chevron's Frade field in the Campos Basin. Chevron was heavily criticized by regulators and government officials, and criminal charges may be leveled against company executives. Environmental regulators have already imposed fines of more than $30 million, while a state prosecutor has filed a lawsuit seeking damages in excess of $10 billion from Chevron, its Brazilian unit and rig operator Transocean.
Chevron was also barred from drilling offshore Brazil, although the company continues to produce oil from the Frade field.
Last week, Petrobras's Transpetro logistics unit also was forced to clean up a beach in southern Brazil after 7.5 bbl of oil spilled during offloading of a tanker ship at a single buoy. Brazil's National Petroleum Agency, or ANP, is investigating the spill.
01/31/2012