Brazil Moves to Allow Amazon Oil Drilling, Marring Lula’s Summit
- Colombia’s Petro blasts Amazon oil exploration at Belem summit
- Petrobras waiting green light to drill at Foz do Amazonas area
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during a news conference at the Amazon Summit in Belem, on Aug. 9.
Photographer: Dado Galdieri/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government is moving toward allowing Brazil’s state-run oil company to survey an ecologically sensitive offshore region, a decision that threatens to overshadow a major environmental summit and feed a festering dispute in his administration.
The attorney general’s office, or AGU, will issue an opinion that it is not necessary for Petroleo Brasileiro SA to conduct a major environmental impact study in order to begin prospecting oil in the so-called Foz do Amazonas, a region off the country’s northern coast, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.