Perilous
Times
Thousands of barrels of oil leaking in spill at drilling
platform off Brazil coast
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Thousands of barrels of oil have spilled
into the Atlantic ocean because of a leak at an offshore Chevron
drilling site, Brazil's environmental protection agency said
Friday.
Officials say that thousands of barrels of oil leaked each day
from Nov. 8 through Tuesday, the Ibama agency said in a statement
on its website.
Chevron has said that unknown thousands of barrels of oil in total
leaked into the ocean. Officials are still investigating the exact
cause of the leak, which has been almost entirely contained, but
the Ibama statement said it was a result of the drilling.
A spokesman for Brazil's Federal Police, which has opened an
investigation into the spill, said that Chevron "drilled about 500
meters (1,640 feet) farther than they were licensed to do." The
official spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized
to discuss the matter.
The leak occurred at a drilling site about 230 miles northeast of
Rio de Janeiro.
Rio state Environment Minister Carlos Minc said earlier he was
sure the leak was larger than Chevron estimated and he called for
more transparency from the company.
"We can't trivialize this," he told the Globo TV network. "It's
really serious and we don't yet know all the consequences."
The oil slick, which is moving away from the coast, grew to 11
miles, according to the Ibama statement. Most of the oil is
concentrated around the drilling rig and is about 3 feet thick.
Marine life in the area of the spill will be affected by the leak,
Minc said, adding that whales are migrating from north to south
through the spill area.
Chevron said "current estimates place the volume of the oil sheen
on the ocean surface to be less than 65 barrels."
The company has 18 ships working on a rotating basis to collect
oil off the surface and monitor the slick.
The drilling contractor for the well is Transocean — the owner of
the Deepwater Horizon rig that oil company BP was leasing at the
time of last year's Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the largest in U.S.
history.
Chevron said that cementing operations are taking place so that
the well is plugged. ANP said in a note on its website that "the
first stage of cementing, to permanently abandon the well, was
successfully completed." The regulator says that the success of
permanently plugging the well will be known "in the coming days."
ANP also said underwater footage showed that a "residual leakage
flow" was continuing, but that "the oil slick continues moving
away from the coast and is being dispersed, as desired."
Fabio Scliar, head of the Federal Police department's
environmental affairs division, which is investigating the case,
said those responsible would held accountable.
"There is no doubt that a crime occurred. The spill comes from the
drilling activity. What interests me now is to find who is
responsible," Scliar was quoted by the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper
as saying.