Investigators Suspect Venezuelan Oil Is Polluting Brazil’s North-East Beaches

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Confidential investigations carried out by the Navy and Petrobras found oil with the same “signature” as Venezuelan oil in slicks spreading across the sea in Brazil’s Northeast region.

The pollutant has already been detected at over 130 points along the coast of the region’s eight states. President Jair Bolsonaro said, on Tuesday, October 8th, he did not rule out that this was a criminal act, but he said that the investigation of the case is still ongoing, and refrained from commenting on other countries’ possible involvement..

According to a high-ranking government source heard by daily newspaper Estado, it is the same type of oil sourced from Venezuela. The conclusion has already been reported to IBAMA, an agency linked to the Environment Ministry.

It is impossible to claim that all spills affecting northeastern beaches come from the same source, but studies carried out on some of the oil slicks have found, with 100 percent certainty, that they are of Venezuelan origin.

The government has handled the issue in strict confidentiality. The Navy and the Federal Police are analyzing samples and have yet to provide details on the origin of the event. Petrobras confines itself to saying that the substance is not marketed by the company.

Estado asked Petrobras about the potential of Venezuelan oil in the Abreu e Lima refinery in Pernambuco, a structure that was to have been built in partnership with the Venezuelan state-owned company PDVSA. Petrobras reported that it has never processed oil of Venezuelan origin in Abreu e Lima, nor has it kept a stock of Venezuelan products in its facilities.

Petrobras reported that the company’s analysis of crude oil samples found on beaches in the northeast “attested, through the observation of specific molecules, that the organic compounds of the material found are inconsistent with the oils produced and marketed by the company”.

The tests were carried out in the laboratories of the Petrobras Research Center (CENPES), in Rio.

“Since September 12th, Petrobras has carried out, at IBAMA’s request, a cleanup of beaches that presented oil slicks in recent days, in the states of Alagoas, Sergipe, Ceará, Paraíba, Pernambuco, Maranhão, Rio Grande do Norte, and Bahia. The work is performed by the Petrobras Environmental Defense Center teams on the beaches indicated by the environmental agency,” the report said.

Source: Estadão Conteúdo