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March 16th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Chevron filed to temporarily halt production operations in Brazil on Thursday after it detected a “small new seep” of oil in the same offshore field where it suffered a high-profile leak in November.
The U.S. oil company said it was taking the step as a precautionary measure to study its “reservoir management plans” in Brazil, where it has spent over $2 billion developing the largest foreign-run oil field.
The announcement came after Chevron and Brazil’s petroleum regulator ANP identified a new oil leak in the Frade field off the northeastern coast of Rio de Janeiro where Chevron spilled an estimated 2,400 to 3,000 barrels in November.
The request to suspend output came on the same day that the ANP said it had notified Chevron that it would be fined an undisclosed amount for failing to prevent seepage at the site. Chevron is already facing fines of up to $121 million for the November spill and has had its drilling license suspended in Brazil, one of the world’s most promising new oil frontiers.
Chevron said the decision to suspend production at Frade was supported by its partners in the field, Brazilian state oil company Petrobras and Frade Japan, which is controlled by Japan’s Inpex. The suspension still has to be approved by Brazilian regulators.
“This decision was taken as a precautionary measure,” Rafael Jaen Williamson, Chevron’s director of corporate affairs in Brazil, said at a news conference in Rio de Janeiro. He added that he hoped the suspension would only last “a matter of months” and that the decision does not alter Chevron’s investment plans in Brazil.
Chevron shares, which were already trading down for the second straight day before the news of the new Brazil leak, slid further. The shares fell as much as 1.1 percent to $109.47, with trading volumes reaching the highest level in three weeks.
The ANP said the oil appeared to be coming from cracks in the ocean floor, not the Chevron well that was sealed following last year’s leak. Williamson, the Chevron executive, said there was no evidence that the new leak was caused by drilling or production at the Frade field, which currently produces about 60,000 barrels a day.
The leak was first spotted on March 4, and engineers found the source on March 13, Williamson said. An 800 meter-long crack on the sea floor, only a few millimeters wide, was also found, said Mauro Pagam, an installation engineer with Chevron.
Chevron and rig operator Transocean are being sued for more than $11 billion by Brazilian prosecutors for the November leak, which amounted to less than 0.1 percent of the size of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
The ANP said on Tuesday that Chevron could win back its drilling rights “within months” if it can convince Brazilian officials it understands exactly what caused the November leak.
(Additional reporting by Reese Ewing, Peter Murphy and Guillermo Parra-Bernal; Writing Todd Benson; Editing by Alden Bentley and Jim Marshall)
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