Offshore oil spills in Brazil: An extensive review and further development.

The present study offers an extensive overview on the evolution and current state of marine oil spill research in Brazil and then discusses further directions. Given the historical and current relevance of this issue, this paper also aims to summarize the exploration, geological background, design of oil spills timeline and assessment of the most important of them. Moreover, it includes a critical comparison of Brazilian oil spill models in terms of their simulation abilities, real-time field data assimilation, space and time forecasts and uncertainty evaluation. This study also presents the perspectives of the Multi-User System for Detection, Prediction, and Monitoring of Oil Spills at Sea (SisMOM) the largest and most important Brazilian project to face the offshore oil spills.

Forensic Geochemistry Reveals International Ship Dumping as a Source of New Oil Spill in Brazil's Coastline (Bahia) in Late 2023.

In the present study, we applied forensic geochemistry to investigate the origin and fate of spilled oils like tarballs stranded at the beaches of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil, in September 2023, based on their fingerprints. Saturated and aromatic compounds were assessed by gas chromatography, and the oceanic surface circulation patterns were deciphered to determine the geographic origin of the spill. Contamination by petroleum represents an enormous threat to the unique, species-rich ecosystems of the study area. The geochemical fingerprint of the oil spilled in 2023 did not correlate with those of previous events, including the one in 2019, the one in early 2022 in Ceará, and an extensive spill across the Brazilian Northeast in late 2022. However, the fingerprint did correlate with crude oils produced by Middle Eastern countries, most likely Kuwait. The oil of the 2023 spill had a carbonate marine origin from early mature source rocks. These findings, together with the moderate weathering of the 2023 tarballs and the ocean circulation patterns at the time of the event, indicate that the oil was discharged close to the shore of Brazil, to the east or southeast of Salvador, by a tanker on an international route in the South Atlantic.

Oil reaching the coast: Is Brazil on the route of international oceanic dumping?

After the oil spill disaster occurred in 2019, various events of tar balls reaching the Brazilian coast and archipelagos have been reported. The hypothesis here is that the oil/waste dumped in international waters by ships on-route to Cape of Good Hope is reaching the Brazilian coast. On that account, 30-year probabilistic simulations were used to estimate the probability of dumped oil residue reaching the Brazilian coast. The simulations considered three Zones following the South Atlantic route. The results have shown that up to 28.5 % of large ships could dump oil on-route. Inside the Brazilian Exclusive Economic Zone, the probability of dumped oil/waste reaching the coastline is about 62 % and quickly decreases for Dumping Zones 2 and 3. Equatorial and Northeast shores of Brazil are the most vulnerable to oceanic dumping when compared to other regions.