The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

CVX was down almost 3% on a minor spill in
Brazil that the company says is now sealed.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-15/transocean-says-no-oil-leaking-from-chevron-well-offshore-brazil.html

›Chevron Says It Has Halted Oil Leak Causing Sheen Off Brazil

By Joe Carroll and Peter Millard - Nov 15, 2011 5:01 PM ET

Chevron Corp. (CVX), the second-largest U.S. energy company, said it has halted an oil leak at the Frade project off the coast of Brazil after plugging a well.

“Fluid flow from the well appears to have ceased,” Kurt Glaubitz, a spokesman for the San Ramon, California-based company, said in an e-mailed statement today. The well probably contributed to the seeps that have been the source of an oil sheen that appeared on the surface of the ocean, he said.

Chevron said yesterday that it planned to use cement and mud to seal a fissure in the sea floor that was the suspected source of the oil leak. As much as 882 barrels of crude had reached the surface, Brazil’s oil regulator, known as ANP, said yesterday, citing Chevron.

The company contracted Transocean’s Sedco 706 rig to drill an appraisal well in the Frade field 230 miles (370 kilometers) northeast of Rio de Janeiro, Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for the Vernier, Switzerland-based rig owner, said today in a telephone interview.

There’s no crude leaking from the subsea well, said Cantwell.

Chevron fell 2.7 percent to close at $103.27 in New York. Transocean declined 3.7 percent to $47.86..

Transocean, the world’s biggest offshore-oil driller, was the owner of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded in the Gulf of Mexico last year, killing 11 workers and leading to the worst offshore oil spill U.S. history.‹