05/08/2023 – 16:49
The Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, reiterated that the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Natural Resources (Ibama) evaluates requests for oil exploration in a technical manner and said that the body will review Petrobras’ request for oil activity in Foz do Amazonas “with all exemption”. She did not mention a timeframe for completing the analysis.
“Ibama denied the license that had already been requested in the past by a private company, and recently it also did not grant the license to Petrobras. The company re-submitted the proposal to Ibama, which will carry out an assessment with all impartiality”, said the minister, when speaking to the press during the Amazonian Dialogues. “In a republican government, technicians are free to give their opinion. And the authorities, who must make public policy based on evidence, must look at what the technicians are saying, ”she added.
The minister also made the following statement: “When you are not a denialist, what science and technology say matters when making decisions.”
And he concluded: “Ibama does not make it difficult, nor does it facilitate. It has a technical opinion that must be observed. We have granted more than 2,000 licenses to Petrobras over time. If the licenses given were not ideological, the licenses denied are not ideological either.”
In May, Ibama denied the environmental license for Petrobras to drill an exploratory well on the coast of Amapá, in the Foz do Amazonas Basin, one of the five that form the so-called Equatorial Margin.
In the denial, in addition to items such as limitations to the fauna protection plan in the event of accidents and the impact of the air flow from Oiapoque airport, which would serve operations, in local communities, the lack of a Sedimentary Area Environmental Assessment (AAAS).
The AAAS is a preliminary study that authorizes the auction of areas for exploration and production of oil and natural gas, which must be carried out by the Ministries of Mines and Energy (MME) and the Environment (MMA), according to a 2012 decree.
In the absence of this assessment, the preparation of which takes years, oil auctions have been authorized by joint manifestations of the ministries, which start from simpler analyses.
In July, the Broadcast (Grupo Estado’s real-time news system) reported that Petrobras was betting on political articulation to be able to resolve the impasse, which would depend on an opinion from the Attorney General’s Office (AGU) capable of forming a legal consensus within the federal government to regarding the need for the AAAS.
On Friday, the 4th, Petrobras’ Director of Exploration and Production, Joelson Mendes, said that the company is confident that it will receive the environmental license to explore for oil and natural gas on the Brazilian Equatorial Margin later this year.
According to him, the state company may receive up to two licenses to explore the area, one for the Foz do Amazonas basin and another for the Potiguar basin, two of the five basins on the Equatorial Margin. “We are in constant contact with Ibama and we understand that we meet all requirements,” he said.
He also said that the company considers the presentation of the AAAS unnecessary “because it has to be done before the bidding, and they bid without AAAS”.
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