Brazil lifts Chevron oil production ban
11 April 2013
Brazil's National Petroleum Agency (ANP) said it had approved Chevron's plan to resume production in four wells of the Frade oil field, located some 370 kilometres northwest of Rio, for a period of 12 months and in two other wells for a period of two months.
This follows the November 2011 oil spill at Frade which resulted in an estimated 3,000 barrels leaking from the field and the precautionary shutdown of the field in March last year after another leak three kilometres from the first.
ANP said it would keep Chevron activities under constant surveillance, with reports produced every two weeks on "monitoring and interpretation of pressure variations in the wells to assess the risks of variations in the geo-mechanical conditions of the reserves."
In September, ANP was fined $17.5 million for 24 violations linked to the spill. The Frade field has a peak output of 60,000 barrels a day.
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