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12 January, 2009
Because Brazil’s government’s refused to cancel an onshore oil and gas licensing round last month, 30,000 workers of Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) took action by striking on 17 December. The strike was coordinated by ICEM-affiliated Federação Única dos Petroleiros (FUP), the National Oil Workers’ Federation.
Although FUP did not disrupt essential services of state-run Petrobras, it did call on refinery workers in nine states to strike that day. FUP joined with the Rural Landless Workers’ Movement and several other social groups in mid-December to occupy the reception of the company’s headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, as well as the Ministry of Energy and Mines building.
The protests were aimed at blocking the government’s tenth round of bidding for oil and gas blocks, some 130 exploration tracts, covering 70,000 square kilometers in Sergipe-Alagoas, Amazon, Paraná, Potiguar, Parecis, Recôncavo, and San Francisco. The union and its aligned social-group constituency, united under the banner “Petroleum Must be Ours,” seeks to keep oil and gas revenues inside the national economy, with the money used for social entitlements of all Brazilians.
“We want Brazil’s sovereignty to be preserved after the recent oil discoveries,” stated a FUP union leader from Rio de Janeiro. “The reserves are strategic and worth trillions of dollars and therefore should be used to improve the quality of life in Brazil and not be given over to foreign companies.”
FUP is carrying forth with legal efforts in the form of court injunctions in several jurisdictions to stop the bidding process, a process in which 48 companies were qualified by the government to bid. Those companies include Shell, Hess, Anadarko, and Devon, to name just a few.
In other news affecting Petrobras, a 28-year-old offshore contract worker and father of one was killed on 4 January when a faulty high-pressure shut-off valve exploded on the company’s FPSO P-34 platform. This occurred in the Jubarte field in deep-sea waters off the southwestern state of Espirito Santo. Two other workers were seriously injured. The workers were employed by UTC Engineering. FUP has been highly critical of the state company’s safety practices, particularly in its policy of outsourcing strategic work.