Brazil awakens to offshore oil’s mixed blessings

Taylor Barnes – Global Post/The Alaska Dispatch, 06/27/2012

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — The discovery of massive offshore crude oil reserves in 2007 was like a debutante party for this emerging South American power, longing to mingle with oil-rich peers in the Americas and the Middle East.

It “proves God is Brazilian,” then-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said of the find. His successor, President Dilma Rousseff, called it the country’s “filet mignon.”

“What we had beforehand was neck meat,” she added.

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The Brazilian oil spill: Overreaction creates great long opportunity

Seeking Alpha, 04/18/2012

(Seeking Alpha)

The BP (BP) spill has sure put traders and investors on edge. While a number of leaking rigs, fires, and other events, have occurred since the fateful spill two years ago, the spill off the coast of Brazil is an actual event that has moved the markets. The fact that Transocean (RIG) was again party to a spill that involves a large governmental lawsuit right at the time it seems near a settlement with BP seems to have spooked traders and investors as well.

Let’s look at the share price reaction in Transocean’s shares since the news was announced shortly after shares reached their one-year high, following the announcement that Transocean’s deepest water rigs had secured a new and impressive $714,000 a day rate.

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Official says oil spill reaches Rio beach

AP/Boston.com, 12/18/2011

Oil spill. RIA Novosti via © flickr.com/ yourlocaldave

Brazilian officials say some of the 2,600 gallons (10,000 liters) of oil that leaked from a Japanese-operated rig last week has reached a beach near Rio de Janeiro.

Rio state’s environmental secretary says part of the spill hit Bonfim beach on Sunday, two days after the oil leaked from the ship-shaped rig operated by the Modec, a Tokyo-based provider of floating production systems working for Brazil’s Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

Carlos Minc was quoted by the O Globo website saying the company was fined in $5.4 million on Saturday.

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Chevron lawsuit flags Brazil investment risks

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Jeb Blount – Reuters, 12/16/2011

A $10.6 billion lawsuit against U.S. oil company Chevron (CVX.N) and rig contractor Transocean (RIGN.VX) could further cool an increasingly chilly investment climate in Brazil’s natural resources industry.

The lawsuit, filed in response to a small oil spill off Brazil’s coast on November 7, will likely drag on for years and seeks to shut down the companies’ local operations. But its biggest impact may be on investors, both foreign and Brazilian, who are being asked to spend upward of $600 billion to turn Brazil up among the world’s top three or four oil producers.

The case comes at a time when Brazil is rewriting its oil regulations to give the government greater control over the country’s oil wealth, an overhaul that has forced delays in investment projects and auctions for new drilling licenses.

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Brazil says oil slick has shrunk

Stan Lehman – AP/ABC News, 11/22/2011

The size of the oil slick at a well operated by U.S.-based Chevron Corp. off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state is more than 80 percent smaller than it was four days ago, said Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency Tuesday.

The agency said in a statement that the slick at the water’s surface covered 0.78 square miles (two square kilometers), compared to the 4.63 square miles (12 square kilometers) registered on Nov. 18.

The agency also said the oil slick continues moving away from Brazil’s coastline.

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Brazil’s ANP: Chevron has started plugging offshore oil well

Matthew Cowley – Dow Jones Newswires, 11/16/2011

Chevron Corp (CVX) on Wednesday started plugging an oil well in deep waters off Brazil’s southeast coast, according to Brazil’s oil regulator, the ANP.

Starting at 1530 GMT Wednesday, a cement plug was put in place at the well in the Frade block, which lies some 230 miles northeast of Rio de Janeiro, the ANP said in a statement. It will take about 20 hours for the cement to dry and the plug to be properly fitted, the ANP said in a statement late Wednesday.

Images from Chevron’s remote cameras suggested the oil spill has already started to slow, the ANP said, adding that Chevron estimated that the well had been spilling between 220 barrels a day and 330 barrels a day.

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Progress seen in fixing Brazil oil spill: Chevron

Guillermo Parra-Bernal – Reuters, 11/15/2011

Motorists are shown at gas pumps at a Chevron gasoline station in Burbank, California July 31, 2009. REUTERS/Fred Prouser

Chevron Corp. said on Tuesday that oil flow from an appraisal well drilled at its Frade field inBrazil appears to have ceased, the first sign of progress in efforts to contain an oil spill in the region.

Monitoring by the company also showed “a significant decrease” in the amount of oil observed leaking from a line of seeps on the ocean floor, the company said in a statement.

Cementing of the well, which is suspected to have been a cause for the oil leak, will be finished in coming days.

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Chevron halts drilling off the coast of Brazil following an oil-spill

Mercopress, 11/14/2011

The Frade project began production in 2009 and averages 50.000 bpd

Oil giant Chevron halted drilling of a well off the coast of Brazil as it looks into the possible causes of an oil spill in the region. Chevron said in a statement e-mailed that an oil sheen had appeared on the surface of the ocean near the Frade project it operates, which it attributed to oil seeps in the area.

The field began production in 2009 and averaged 50,000 barrels per day of output last year.

“As part of the precautionary suspension of development drilling activities at Frade, Chevron Brazil has closed in a well it was drilling in the vicinity of these oil seeps,” the statement said.

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