Petrobras Reports Accident At Pre-Salt Field In Brazil
Published January 31, 2012
NYSE:PBR
RIO DE JANEIRO – Brazilian state-run energy giant Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR, PETR4.BR), or Petrobras, said Tuesday that a production column ruptured during a well test at an ultra-deepwater field off Brazil's coast, spilling an estimated 160 barrels of crude into the Atlantic Ocean.
The accident occurred at the Carioca Nordeste field, part of a cluster of oil discoveries made more than 4 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 8:30 a.m. local time, Petrobras said.
The safety systems automatically shut down the well, which remains closed and in safe condition, Petrobras said.
The accident is the second such incident to strike Brazil's offshore oil industry in the past three months, raising further concerns about the safety of deep-water drilling in the wake of the Macondo disaster in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. In November, an incident at Chevron's Frade field in the Campos Basin spilled about 3,000 barrels of crude.
Last week, Petrobras's Transpetro logistics unit also was forced to clean up a beach in southern Brazil after 7.5 barrels of oil spilled from a single buoy while being unloaded from a tanker ship.
Petrobras said that "there is no possibility of the oil reaching the Brazilian coast." Carioca Nordeste 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."
Petrobras said that it is investigating the cause of the accident.
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