Chevron’s Brazilian oil spill

From the BBC:

24 December 2011 Last updated at 03:27 GMT

Brazil fines Chevron $5.4m for oil spill

Brazil has fined US oil giant Chevron $5.4m (£3.5m) for breach of its environmental licence when it tackled an oil spill in November.

Brazil’s Ibama environmental agency said Chevron lacked the necessary equipment and was slow to respond.

Ibama had already fined Chevron $28m for causing the spill off the coast of Rio de Janeiro.

Chevron is also facing an $11bn lawsuit over the spill of about 3,000 barrels of crude oil at the Frade field.

Brazil has already suspended all of the drilling operations of Chevron and its contractors after the incident.

An appeals court in Ecuador upheld an $18 billion (£11.5bn) ruling against Chevron Corporation on Tuesday for polluting the Amazon rain forest: here.

Brazilian prosecutors said on Saturday that they will file criminal charges against 17 executives of US oil giant Chevron and drilling contractor Transocean for a new oil leak near the offshore well where at least 110,000 gallons spilled late last year: here.

Chevron accused of racism as it fights Ecuador pollution ruling: here.

The 2007 Cosco Busan disaster, which spilled 54,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay, had an unexpectedly lethal impact on embryonic fish, devastating a commercially and ecologically important species for nearly two years, reports a new study by the University of California, Davis, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: here.

Historic day in struggle to bring @Chevron to justice in Ecuador: 200k+ case files moved to National Court of Justice: here.