Brazil’s offshore oil comes under satellite scrutiny – A greener life, a greener world

By Daniel Cressey

Brazil’s offshore oil industry is leaving “a trail of chronic pollution” across the Atlantic that is marring the marine environment and the country’s reputation, according to an analysis of satellite and vessel tracking data.

The analysis was released by SkyTruth, an organisation harnessing satellite data to study environmental problems. It identified 179 “probable oil slicks” in Brazil’s waters from satellite images taken since 2017. Of these, 48 came directly from oil and gas infrastructure. The rest were from vessels associated with the industry. A single production and storage vessel operating in the Santos Basin – off Brazil’s south-eastern coast – was responsible for nine slicks.

Aside from the climate impacts of burning the extracted oil, SkyTruth says these facilities are flaring off huge amounts of the extracted gas – 12.5 billion cubic metres since 2012. In addition, several of these sites overlap with marine protected areas.

A threat to Brazil’s coastal ecology

“The patterns we’re documenting – chronic oil pollution, coastal industrialisation, habitat loss and degradation – represent significant threats to Brazil’s coastal ecology and economy,” said John Amos, SkyTruth’s CEO.

As the host of this year’s UN climate meeting, COP30, Brazil has been under heavy scrutiny for its fossil fuels record.

Lula accused of hypocrisy

At the UN Ocean Conference (UNOC) in June, various delegates called it hypocritical that Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, claims support for Indigenous rights and environmental protection while pursuing oil drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River.

Luene Karipuna, an Indigenous woman of the Karipuna people in Amapá, northern Brazil, told me during UNOC: “The project threatens not just the environment but how the Indigenous people live. Here [at UNOC], Lula is saying he supports Indigenous rights. But Lula has pushed for this project.”

In October, exploration of the Foz do Amazonas area at the Amazon mouth was approved. At the time, the CEO of Brazil’s state oil firm, Petrobras, called it an “achievement for Brazilian society” (Reuters); the Brazilian climate action network Climate Observatory (Observatorio do Clima) said the approval sabotaged COP30 (The Guardian).

Amos told Mongabay that part of the motivation for this SkyTruth study was to “call attention to the large coalition of environmental groups, Indigenous peoples and quilombola communities[descendants of enslaved African people brought to Brazil]who have sued Lula’s government to overturn the [exploration] decision, and the work undertaken by organisations like Observatorio do Clima to sketch out alternative futures for Petrobras and the Brazilian energy industry”.

First published in Dialogue Earth.