Brazil Senator Attacks Braskem Deal Over Sinking City of Maceió

Brazil · Politics

A veteran senator has revived a three-year-old settlement over a mining disaster that emptied five neighbourhoods. His target is the family now fighting his own for power in Alagoas.

Renan Calheiros took on Braskem and his political rivals on Tuesday, calling a 2023 compensation deal over Maceió’s sinking neighbourhoods “criminal”. The veteran senator, who is seeking re-election on 4 October, spoke on TV Gazeta, a television station in Alagoas state.

The deal he attacked is three years old. Maceió’s city hall signed it in July 2023 with Braskem, Brazil’s largest petrochemical company.

Braskem paid the city 1.7 billion reais (about US$330 million) in compensation for damage from its rock-salt mining. In return, the city granted a full release from further claims and handed over public land in the evacuated zone.

Conversions in this article use the Central Bank of Brazil’s reference rate of 5.12 to the US dollar on 22 September 2026.

What Calheiros said on air

Calheiros was interviewed live on Bom Dia Alagoas, TV Gazeta’s morning programme, on 22 September 2026. The broadcast began at 7:30 a.m. BRT, which is Brasília time, and also ran on the group’s radio stations and website.

According to GazetaWeb, the group’s news site, he called the city’s agreement “criminal”. He objected to the transfer of land to the company.

He also said the city must explain how the money was spent. The Renan Calheiros Braskem dispute is now part of the Alagoas campaign.

He placed the political blame on the mayor who signed it, João Henrique Caldas, widely known as JHC. Calheiros also claimed that nearly 60,000 people from the affected area had not been approached or compensated, GazetaWeb reported.

Braskem gives a different picture of its own programme. The company says more than 99.6% of the compensation it planned has been paid, covering about 14,500 properties.

Calheiros promised to keep pursuing Braskem from the Senate. He chairs the Senate’s economic affairs committee, which on 1 September approved his request to hear from the heads of Braskem’s owners.

A family feud on the ballot

The charge lands less than two weeks before an election in which the Calheiros and Caldas families are direct rivals. JHC resigned as mayor on 4 April 2026 to run for governor of Alagoas against Renan Filho, the senator’s son.

JHC’s wife, Marina Candia, is running for the Senate for the PSDB, a centre-right party. A Paraná Pesquisas poll released on 21 September put her second with 37.8% and Calheiros third with 34.6%, a statistical tie.

Arthur Lira of the centre-right PP, a former speaker of the lower house, led with 41.2%. Alagoas elects two senators this year, so each voter could name two candidates.

The poll, commissioned by TV Pajuçara, surveyed 1,400 voters from 18 to 20 September, with a margin of error of 2.7 points. No response from JHC or Braskem to Tuesday’s remarks had been reported by Tuesday afternoon.

What the 2023 agreement says

Braskem says the 1.7 billion reais (about US$330 million) fully compensated the city for the subsidence and the evacuation. Managing the money is the city’s responsibility, the company adds.

The release it gave Braskem was “general, full, irrevocable and irretractable”, the Brasília news site Congresso em Foco reported. The text allows renegotiation if the map of the affected area grows significantly.

The land clause is what Calheiros singled out.

The city agreed to transfer ownership of public property in the zone, GazetaWeb reported in 2024. That includes streets, squares, gardens, parks and pavements.

Senator Rogério Carvalho was the rapporteur of a 2024 Senate inquiry into Braskem. In April 2024 he argued that nothing stopped the company from one day building there.

Calheiros had pushed for that inquiry but left it in February 2024.

The Alagoas state government, then led by Governor Paulo Dantas of Calheiros’s MDB party, fought the settlements in court. In late 2023 a federal court in Maceió rejected its request to review the city’s deal.

The state also asked the Supreme Court to strike down clauses of Braskem’s settlements with prosecutors. Justice Cármen Lúcia rejected that case on procedural grounds in June 2024.

Braskem made its final payment to the city in December 2024, the regional news site Política Alagoana reported. It noted that how the money would be spent remained unclear.

Separately, in November 2025, Braskem agreed to pay the state of Alagoas 1.2 billion reais (about US$235 million), mostly over ten years. The deal also ended the state’s lawsuit against the company, Gazeta do Povo reported.

Why Maceió’s neighbourhoods sank

For about four decades, Braskem and its predecessors extracted rock salt from 35 wells beneath Maceió, the state capital. The salt feeds chemical plants making chlorine and PVC plastic.

In March 2018, after an earth tremor, cracks spread through streets and buildings in the Pinheiro district. A 2019 report by the Brazilian Geological Service linked the ground movement to the salt extraction.

Five neighbourhoods were eventually emptied: Pinheiro, Mutange, Bebedouro, Bom Parto and Farol. About 60,000 people left their homes, turning whole districts into ghost towns.

On 29 November 2023 the city declared an emergency over a mine cavity under Mutange. Part of it collapsed on 10 December 2023.

What comes next for Braskem and Maceió

Braskem has asked for an out-of-court restructuring of about 56 billion reais (about US$10.9 billion) of debt. Its owners are the state-controlled oil company Petrobras and the investment firm IG4 Capital.

In his committee request, Calheiros argued that this reorganisation must not undervalue, hide or delay Braskem’s obligations to Maceió. Agência Senado, the Senate’s news service, said a date would be set later.

For now, the fight over the sunken districts is also a fight over votes. Alagoas goes to the polls on Sunday 4 October 2026.

More: Brazil coverage, every day from The Rio Times.

What did Renan Calheiros say about Braskem?

In a live TV Gazeta interview on 22 September 2026, he called the 2023 agreement between Maceió’s city hall and Braskem “criminal”, according to GazetaWeb. He objected to the transfer of public land to the company and said the use of the money must be explained. He promised to keep pressing Braskem in the Senate.

Is the Maceió deal new?

No. The city signed it in July 2023, and a federal court in Maceió rejected a state request to review it later that year. Braskem paid the city 1.7 billion reais (about US$330 million), completing payment in December 2024 according to Política Alagoana.

Why did parts of Maceió sink?

Braskem and its predecessors mined rock salt beneath the city for about four decades. After cracks appeared in 2018, the Brazilian Geological Service linked the subsidence to the mining in 2019. About 60,000 people left five neighbourhoods.

Why is this political?

JHC, the mayor who signed the deal, is running for governor of Alagoas against Renan Filho, the senator’s son. JHC’s wife, Marina Candia, is competing with Calheiros for one of the state’s two Senate seats on 4 October 2026.

Sources: GazetaWeb on the TV Gazeta interview, GazetaWeb on the interview schedule, GazetaWeb on the Paraná Pesquisas Senate poll, GazetaWeb on JHC’s campaign for governor, Poder360 with the full 2023 agreement, Braskem on the agreement with Maceió, Congresso em Foco on the release clause, GazetaWeb on the public-land clause, Agência Brasil on the Supreme Court ruling, Política Alagoana on the final payment, Gazeta do Povo on the state agreement, Braskem on compensation in Alagoas, Agência Senado on the committee hearing request, Central Bank of Brazil PTAX rate

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