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Brazil’s fledgling deep-sea oil industry faces up to risks
There was little fanfare when Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the taps last week on the country’s first commercial deep-sea oil production...“People know there is risk involved in deep sea operations, but you never want to see a leak, or any accident related to the risk involved in a drilling project, like what happened in the Gulf,” says Raphael Moura, safety co-ordinator at Brazil’s national oil regulator, ANP...Although Brazil is continuing with plans to develop its deepwater reserves, led by state-controlled oil major Petrobras, the BP accident is expected to raise insurance prices for deep-sea drilling...An ANP-led safety review, under which field operators must say what they would do if they faced a BP-like situation, is expected to take a year.