UK backs loans for very deep Brazilian offshore oil drilling

http://www.thecornerhouse.org.uk/resource/uk-backs-loans-very-deep-brazilian-offshore-oil-drilling

For the past five years, ECGD has been underwriting a $52 million loan taken out by the Brazilian state-run energy company, Petrobras, for an offshore oil production platform operating in the Atlantic Ocean in even deeper waters than those in the Gulf of Mexico where BP's exploration well is spewing forth oil after the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded and sank in April this year. The Brazilian offshore oil and gas reservoirs are considered to be among the most hazardous in the world to access. The Petrobras rig replaced one that exploded and sank in 2001, killing 11 people. ECGD's financial guarantees supported four UK companies -- Rolls-Royce Power Engineering, VWS Westgarth, Koch Chemical Technology Group and Invsat -- who were supplying services to Petrobas Netherlands, the Dutch subsidiary of the Brazilian oil company, as part of the $900 million platform. ECGD never undertook any assessment of the risks of a blow-out, whether the platform's safety valves were adequate or of its emergency response plan -- it has claimed that it was not under any duty to do so.