AmericasOffshore

Petrobras halts production on four platforms after oil leak discovered

San Francisco: A suspected leak of around 7,000 litres of oil caused Petrobras to stop production on four of its platforms offshore Brazil on Friday.

The leak is believed to have come from a pipeline linking the four platforms. The country’s oil regulator ANP said the leak occurred in the Camorim field which is 10 miles off the coast of Aracaju, a northeastern city in Sergipe State, the smallest state in the nation.

Petrobras, Brazil’s state-run energy company which has been engulfed in turmoil from a huge corruption scandal, acted as soon as possible to shut down the platforms and had contained the leak, ANP said on Friday afternoon.

The affected rigs are PCM-5, PCM-6, PCM-8 and PCM-9, which are capable of producing 400 barrels of oil and 60,000 cubic metres of natural gas a day. The pipeline leak was in the stretch linking PCM-5 and PCM-6.

The Brazilian navy is monitoring the oil slick and ANP said it will probably open an investigation into what caused the leak.

Donal Scully

With 28 years experience writing and editing for newspapers in the UK and Hong Kong, Donal is now based in California from where he covers the Americas for Splash as well as ensuring the site is loaded through the Western Hemisphere timezone.
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