Oil patches appear in Brazil’s Northeast

After several weeks of being ignored by the mainstream media and minimized by the federal government, the mysterious oil patches that started appearing in different beaches in the Northeast of the country in late August finally made national headlines.

The first patches of crude oil were seen on August 30th in Paraiba state; then, on September 2nd, the spill was spotted in Pernambuco state. By September 26, 99 localities in 46 different municipalities from 8 Northeast states had been affected according to IBAMA. By then, investigations had already shown that all the samples of crude oil shared the same origin but were unable to identify the source of the spill. Petrobras clarified that Brazil does not produce crude oil.