(Brazil) Government $1bn deal to controversial Petrobras deep-sea oil drilling
Source: The Guardian
Government 1bn deal to controversial Petrobras deep-sea oil drilling
Rupert Neate
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 July 2012 19.21 BST
The government has committed $1bn of taxpayer's funds to support deep-sea drilling in the south Atlantic, despite acknowledging that the controversial project has "significant potential" to damage the environment.
Vince Cable's export credit guarantee department (ECGD) has agreed a $1bn (£637m) line of credit to help Brazil's state-owned oil company, Petrobras, drill for oil and gas. This will be in deeper water than the area in the Gulf of Mexico where an explosion on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig led to 11 deaths and US's the worst environmental disaster two years ago.
The funding agreement, revealed in the ECGD's annual report, comes despite the department's own advisers warning that fresh oil and gas drilling off the coast of Brazil could lead to a marine catastrophe. The government's experts warned there are "significant potential adverse environmental impacts anticipated, including beyond site boundaries".
Lisa Nandy, a Labour MP and chair of a parliamentary inquiry into the ECGD, which the Department for Business has renamed UK Export Finance (UKEF), said: "It is a cause of real concern that, despite the coalition commitment to end all export finance for dirty fossil fuels, particularly the risky Atlantic oil drilling, UKEF still funds so many fossil-fuel-related projects and has so far failed to support a single green energy project."
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Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/11/petrogras-deap-sea-oil-drilling-funding
