Lessons Learned On Oil Spill Environment Impact Assessment: 10 Years of Petrobras Experience Review

ABSTRACT This paper presents an overview of the experience on oil spill impact assessment, preparedness and response, including scientific and forensic approaches. The incidents in Guanabara Bay (2000), Barigui and Iguacu Rivers – pipeline OSPAR (2000), pipeline OLAPA in Serra do Mar (2001) and some other spills in terminals in Brazil, have improved the environmental practices of the company, resulting on an environmental management and operational safety excellence program (PEGASO) with global expenditure amounting 5 billion dollars from 2000 to 2010. The experience made the company create new tools and improve established ones such as spilled oil characterization and weathering and environmental monitoring. Petrobras preparedness and response capability reached new levels using the modeling of oil spill scenarios to develop contingency plans and hydrodynamic models for operational forecast, a multi-sensor approach for oil spill early detection and monitoring and sensitivity maps together with emergency ...