Brazil’s environment agency, IBAMA, has approved an environmental license for state-owned oil company Petrobras to drill for oil near the mouth of the Amazon River.
The license, issued Oct. 20, allows the company start drilling the offshore Morpho well in oil block FZA-M-059, about 500 kilometers (311 miles) from the river’s mouth, and 2.8 km (1.7 mi) below the seafloor. Environmental groups have vehemently condemned the decision, saying they will pursue legal action.
“[President] Lula has just buried his claim of being a climate leader at the bottom of the ocean at the mouth of the Amazon River,” Suely Araújo, public policy coordinator at the Climate Observatory, a Brazilian watchdog organization, said in a statement. “The government will be duly sued for this in the coming days.” (Araújo previously served as IBAMA head during President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s first term in office.)
According to Petrobras, the drilling will be exploratory to evaluate whether the oil reserves there are economically viable. “We expect to obtain excellent results from this exploration and to confirm the existence of oil in the Brazilian portion of this new global energy frontier,” Petrobras president Magda Chambriard said in a statement, adding that the license’s approval reflects the nation’s commitment to development.
The oil company said the drilling will start immediately and is expected to last for five months, meaning it will overlap with the COP30 climate summit, the first to be hosted by Brazil, in the Amazon Rainforest.
“Drilling for oil while hosting a climate summit hosts a bitter irony,” Bruna Campos, senior offshore oil and gas campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law, said in a statement shared with Mongabay. “Oil exploration at the mouth of the Amazon threatens the Atlantic Ocean, which sustains marine biodiversity and millions of livelihoods.”
A recent satellite study found that offshore oil platforms are among the top ocean polluters, but often fly under the radar as spills and other impacts can be hard to detect.
An oil spill is a concern at the FZA-M-059 block, given that ocean currents there are extremely complex and a potential leak could impact eight countries, Philip Fearnside, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), previously wrote in a commentary.
An earlier evaluation by IBAMA warned that oil exploration in the region could damage the Amazon Reef, a 9,500-square-kilometer (3,700-square-mile) system of corals, sponges and algae discovered less than a decade ago, and other high-biodiversity areas.
“The Amazon is very close to the point of no return, which will be irreversibly reached if global warming hits 2°C [3.6°F] and deforestation surpasses 20%,” Carlos Nobre, co-chair of the Scientific Panel for the Amazon and a researcher on the Amazon tipping point, said in a statement. “There is no justification for any new oil exploration.”
Banner image: The NS-42 drilling rig, already at the Morpho well, is set to begin drilling immediately. Image courtesy of Petrobras.
This story first appeared on Mongabay
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