巴西天价罚单可能吓跑外国石油公司

    腐败、闹剧和完全缺乏竞争力可能打碎巴西成为石油出口大国的梦想。上周，巴西检察官要求雪佛龙（Chevron）及其钻井合作伙伴Transocean为在巴西沿海意外漏油约3,000桶支付110亿美元的巨额罚款。虽然这样的罚款额显然过高，真正获得支付的可能性也不大，但这引发了对在巴西开展业务是否有长期保障的疑虑。

    漏油似乎是海底石油钻探和输送过程中很难完全避免的现象。大规模漏油事故——比如去年英国石油（BP）在墨西哥湾漏油400万桶——完全无法容忍。但如果在开采几百万桶的情况下每年漏油几百桶是在是稀松平常的事情。

    但在巴西，有人认为这样的漏油事件是“死罪”——特别是如果被告是一家外资石油公司的话。本月初，美国石油公司雪佛龙被巴西联邦政府罚款5,000万雷亚尔（2,800万美元），原因是其距里约热内卢标志性海滩外75英里的近海钻井平台泄漏了约2,400-3,000桶石油。

    如果这一漏油事件发生在美国水域，雪佛龙可能只需支付上述罚款额的一半左右，而且前提是雪佛龙被认定存在严重疏忽。雪佛龙对巴西联邦政府的处罚决定没有发表异议，同意支付罚款，承担事故的全部责任，并立即开始清理。巴西石油业发展快速，雪佛龙不想因此危及自己在这个市场地位。漏油口已被封堵，海面上也已看不到泄漏的原油。鉴于漏油量大小和洋流方向，泄漏原油绝无污染里约热内卢海滩的可能。

    但故事并未就此结束。这一漏油事件在里约州迅速开始政治化；里约州是巴西新兴石油行业的中心，也是准国有企业——巴西国家石油公司（Petrobras）的所在地。里约州环境部长威胁将吊销雪佛龙的经营执照，让远在美国休斯顿的、积极参与巴西石油行业建设的众多外资石油公司也感到一阵阵寒意。就此，巴西联邦政府私底下安慰石油业界，钻井许可归联邦政府管，他们不必在意地方官员的叫嚣。

    但如今，这些不满已演变成了一项巨额民事诉讼。来自里约热内卢邻近城市坎普斯的检察官们上周三对雪佛龙和瑞士Transocean公司提起了诉讼，指控他们因严重疏忽造成了漏油事件，并索偿200亿雷亚尔（约110亿美元）。检察官们表示，高额的罚款是为了表明里约州高度重视环保问题。诉讼未提及雪佛龙在这一油田项目中的其他合作伙伴，包括一家日本金融公司和巴西国家石油公司，也没有说明罚款将如何在雪佛龙和Transocean之间分配。

    Corruption, grandstanding and total incompetence may sink Brazil's dreams of becoming an oil exporting powerhouse. Prosecutors in the country last week slapped Chevron and drilling partner Transocean with an $11 billion fine for accidentally releasing around 3,000 barrels of oil off of Brazil's coast. While the fine is clearly excessive and unlikely to stick, it has raised questions regarding the long-term safety of doing business in Brazil.

    Oil spills seem to unfortunately be a fact of life when drilling and transporting oil from the ocean floor. Massive spills, like BP's disastrous four-million barrel belch in the Gulf of Mexico last year, though, are totally unacceptable. But the leaking of a few hundred barrels of oil per year seems to be par for the course when extracting millions.

    In Brazil, though, one would think that such minute spills were a capital offense -- especially if the offender was a foreign oil company. US-based Chevron (CVX) was fined 50 million reals ($28 million) by Brazil's federal government earlier this month for leaking around 2,400 to 3,000 barrels from one of its offshore drilling platforms located 75-miles off the coast of Brazil's iconic beaches in Rio de Janeiro.

    The fine is around double what Chevron would have had to pay if the leak occurred in U.S. waters, and only if the company were convicted of gross negligence in relation to the spill. Instead of fighting the fine, Chevron agreed to pay, accepted total responsibility for the accident and quickly began clean up. It did not want to jeopardize its place in Brazil's fast-growing oil industry. The leak has since been plugged and has disappeared from the ocean surface. There was never any risk of oil washing up on the beaches in Rio given the size of the spill and the direction of the ocean currents.

    But that was not the end of the story. The oil spill quickly became politicized in the state of Rio de Janeiro, home of Brazil's burgeoning oil industry and the quasi-state-controlled oil giant Petrobras. The environmental secretary of Rio threatened to revoke Chevron's operating license over the spill, sending shivers all the way up to Houston, home to the dozens of foreign oil companies that feed Brazil's oil engine. The federal government in Brasilia quietly reassured the oil community that drilling permits were under federal jurisdiction and that they should simply ignore the howls of discontent from local officials.

    But now those howls have turned into a stinging civil lawsuit. Prosecutors from Campos, a city near Rio de Janeiro, filed suit last Wednesday against Chevron and Transocean (RIG) for gross negligence in connection with the oil spill. They announced they were seeking 20 billion reals or around $11 billion in compensation for the spill. The fine was high, prosecutors say, in order to send a message that Rio was serious when it comes to environmental protection. The suit did not mention Chevron's other partners in the oil field, a Japanese financial company and Petrobras, and did not say how the fine would be divvied up between Chevron and Transocean.