Brazil imposes travel ban on oil chiefs awaiting spill trial

Seventeen executives from two oil companies have been banned from leaving Brazil after criminal charges were brought against them for a spill in Rio de Janeiro.

Managers at Chevron and Transocean, including the chief executives of the companies’ Brazilian operations, George Buck and Michael Legrand, are to face trial for a 3,000-barrel offshore spill in November 2010.

Prosecutors say Buck should face 31 years in jail for the incident, while the judge imposing the travel ban at their request said the executives’ departure “under the current circumstances would pose great risk to the investigation and the eventual application of the criminal law”.

The proceedings, the latest brought against individuals prompted by an environmental disaster, follow a decision in the Netherlands that enables a Trafigura director to be prosecuted for his involvement in illegal waste export to the Ivory Coast (EP, March 2012, p1).

It is thought any convictions in the latest case would make the exploitation of recently discovered offshore oil, which has made Brazil a promising development proposition for energy companies, difficult for Chevron and Transocean. Both repudiate the charges, saying no person was injured, and marine life unharmed.

The Ecuadorian government is still attempting to seize Chevron’s assets outside Ecuador, to service an $18bn (£11.3bn, €13.7bn) court fine imposed for environmental damage to the Amazon rainforest caused by Texaco, which the company bought in 2001.