On November 7, OceanPact held a workshop during Clean Gulf in San Antonio, Texas, called “Risk Management and Planning to Combat Oil Spills: New Challenges and Success Stories in Brazil.”

The workshop was an opportunity to present an overview of regulatory aspects, environmental agencies and players in the country’s oil and gas industry to an audience from around the world. Talks were given by Rodolfo Saboia, the director general of Brazil’s National Oil, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP); Cintia Levita, an environmental analyst at the Brazilian environmental protection agency, IBAMA; Rodrigo Cochrane, senior oil spill technical advisor at Petrobras; Tatiana Mafra, BW’s sustainability manager; Leonardo Alcântara, HSE manager at Trident; Arpel consultant Marcus Lisbôa; Adriano Ranieri, the CEO of EnvironPact and COO of OceanPact; and Flavio Andrade, the CEO of OceanPact.

ANP’s director general emphasized that Brazil has the regulatory maturity and a competitive market to support the industry’s growth with safety and environmental protection. Cintia Levita spoke about the licensing process and emphasized the sensitivity and diversity of the still little-known ecosystem of Brazil’s “Equatorial Margin” region.

This new frontier region was also highlighted by Rodrigo Cochrane, who presented Petrobras’ exploration campaign in the Equatorial Margin and described how the oil company is preparing for the possibility of operating in the region. Flavio Andrade ended the event by talking about the Amapá Expedition, carried out by OceanPact to assess the best ways to measure marine currents in the region and analyze possible locations for the installation of radar antennas to measure surface currents, in order to offer solutions for tackling incidents there. The workshop was moderated by OceanPact’s commercial director, Érik Cunha.