As Brazil prepares to host COP30 and commits to ending Amazon deforestation and achieving net zero by 2050, it’s also expanding offshore oil exploration to support its economy, reports Bloomberg. Petrobras is drilling near the Amazon to offset declining production and fund the energy transition, despite environmental concerns. With global oil demand rising and new discoveries scarce, Brazil’s oil output is vital for both the country and global energy security, highlighting the tension between climate ambitions and fossil fuel dependence. They write:
There’s a predicament that global leaders — particularly those who fashion themselves as proponents of a green future — are facing: The world’s insatiable desire for fossil fuels.
Nowhere is that on display more than in Brazil.
The nation is hosting COP30, the world’s most important climate conference, this fall, while its state-owned oil company is moving a giant drillship to a site just over 100 miles off the coast of the Amazon rainforest in a desperate hunt for more crude — one it hopes will save the production of the nation’s biggest export — from plunging in the 2030s.[…]
Anjos has been encouraged by some recent exploration successes in the pre-salt, but also admits that they aren’t the same scale as the multi-billion-barrel mega-fields that Petrobras discovered in the late 2000s.
“Petrobras would be more bullish if it were a mega discovery,” said Marcelo De Assis, a Rio de Janeiro-based independent oil consultant.
Which brings us back to the waters off the Amazon. […]
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