Blog, Latin America: Week in Review

Prosecutors Ask to Halt Chevron Operations in Brazil

December 15, 2011 By Staff

Today in Latin America

Top Story — Brazilian prosecutors have asked a judge to order Chevron to halt its operations in Brazil and pay a $10.6 billion fine for an oil spill last month off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state. Prosecutors said that the spill at the offshore Frade oilfield released 3,000 barrels of oil when an underground reservoir started leaking up through the sea floor on November 7. Transocean Ltd., the contractor for the well where the leak occurred, may also have to suspend its activities on Brazilian territory. In November, the Brazilian Environmental Ministry fined Chevron about $28 million, but Chevron representatives said the company responded responsibly to the leak and dealt transparently with Brazilian authorities.  Meanwhile, Ecuador’s state oil company, Petroecuador, said it would spend an estimated $70 million to clean up pollution in the Amazon rainforest caused when Texaco, now owned by Chevron, reportedly dumped oil drilling waste in unlined pits during the 1970s and 80s.  Chevron and Ecuador have been locked in an international legal battle in which Chevron was ordered to pay $18 billion in damages.

Read more from the AP and  Reuters.

Headlines from the Western Hemisphere

North America

Caribbean

Central America

Andes

Southern Cone

  • The remains of fifteen people believed to be murdered during Argentina 1976-1983 military dictatorship were discovered at a military arsenal in the northern Argentine state of Tucuman.
  • Chilean doctors successfully separated two conjoined twin girls after approximately 20 hours of surgery on Wednesday.
  • England’s Football Association will begin a hearing into allegations that Uruguayan soccer star Luis Suarez used a racial epithet against Manchester United’s Patrice Evra in October.

Image: Rainforest Action Network @ Flickr.

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