2021 Accident and Leak Prevention

Accident and Leak Prevention

In our activities, we produce and move large volumes of oil and its derivatives, for this reason, proper management of processes and activities is essential to prevent loss of containment and leaks that can result in impacts to the environment and people.

The corporate contingency plan provides the structure and information for making additional resources available to the units' Emergency Response Plans, in Brazil and abroad. These additional resources are distributed in the Environmental Defense Centers (CDAs) and in advanced bases, located throughout Brazil, in addition to Transpetro's Emergency Response Centers.

Também somos sócios da Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), instituição especializada de resposta às emergências relacionadas ao derramamento de óleo, que provê apoio com recursos para atuação complementar no caso de resposta nacional ou internacional.

We also are members of Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), a specialized oil spill emergency response institution that provides support with resources for complementary action in there is a need for a national or international response.

Through our research center (Cenpes), we maintain permanent research in the field of chemical dispersant application, environmental monitoring, environmental impact assessment, ecotoxicity, modeling, and behavior characterization of oil at sea.

Ancora Oil and oil product spills

Oil and oil product spills

The volume of oil and derivatives leaked recorded in 2021 was 11.6 m³, below the alert limit of 120 m³ established internally for the year. This result represents the best performance in the historical series. Of the leaked volume, 1.56 m³ were recovered.

Of the leaks recorded above a barrel, no occurrence was recorded that reached a sensitive coastal area or unusual sensitive area.

In 2021, the set of actions implemented resulted in a reduction in the number of clandestine derivations from 201 to 102, that is, a reduction of 49.25% in the number of occurrences, when compared to the previous year.

The reduction in the volume of product extracted from the pipelines, as a result of the fight against this type of crime, was also an important result. The total extracted in 2021 was 1.8 thousand m3, versus 5.0 thousand m3 in the previous year.

Response measures taken in cases of significant leaks

In the case of occurrences at sea, the actions generally follow the activation of the Emergency Plan for Oil Spills (PEVO) of the respective Units, and the Organizational Response Structure (EOR) is called to coordinate the actions.

For onshore events, the Emergency Plans are also activated and the EOR is established (operational maneuvers were carried out to interrupt the source of the leak. As part of the actions, the emergency response, property security, and cleaning teams are activated, as well as modern equipment to collect the spilled oil.

Subsequently, it is our practice to carry out coverage based on the recommendations resulting from the accident investigation in order to act preventively in other units where there are similarities in processes or equipment that are associated with the root cause of the accident, promoting process improvement and raising the level of operational safety.

Ancora Process safety

Process safety

In 2021, we recorded 10 Tier 1 process safety accidents and 51 Tier 2 accidents, which is lower than last year, showing improved performance.

Regarding the monitoring of safety systems, it is worth highlighting the efforts to implement, within the scope of the Commitment to Life Program, technology that will enable the dynamic management of the integrity and reliability of the barriers to protect against process accidents in our industrial facilities.

HSE management defines, in Guideline 11 - Contingency, that emergency situations must be foreseen and be dealt with quickly and effectively, seeking maximum reduction of their effects. In this way, we have emergency response plans at local, regional, and national levels.

At the operational level, each facility has an Emergency Response Plan, which identifies the scenarios and measures to be adopted by the response teams to control the event and mitigate the resulting impacts.

In 2021, even with the pandemic, we carried out 11 drill exercises at a regional level that were 100% remote, using digital tools.