Brazil’s ‘subsalt’ drilling raises safety questions

Brazil

In late January, Brazil experienced its second offshore oil spill in three months. The spill, though small, was the first to occur in the so-called “subsalt” offshore drilling fields that Petrobras, the state oil company, is counting on to help it become a major global oil exporter this decade. Environmentalists fault the government for lacking special, extra-rigorous safeguards for subsalt fields, which lie 200 to 300 kilometers (125 to 185 miles) off the coast beneath 2,000 meters (6,560 feet) of water. Subsalt projects involve drilling unprecedented distances below the seabed—typically about 5,000 meters (16,400 feet) through rock, sand and a two-kilometer (1.2-mile) band of salt. Estimated to hold at least 50 billion barrels of oil, Brazil’s subsalt fields currently account... [Log in to read more]

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