Since 2003 a new approach to conduct the environmental permitting process for oil & gas activities offshore Brazil has been negotiated with the Brazilian environmental federal authority (IBAMA). The new model is based on the concept of geographical areas, where an operator can develop a set of drilling or production projects considering just one administrative process, instead of carrying out individual ones which usually led to more prolonged permits. This model has been successfully applied by Petrobras in the drilling permits (LO) for the Geographical Areas of Campos and Espírito Santo, which respond for almost 80% of the total drilling activity carried out by the company in Brazilian waters, nowadays. The model was also applied to license a production area in the northern part of Campos Basin called Parque das Baleias. In this area, a Preliminary Permit (LP) was granted and for each new project (platform, pipeline) there are just a few steps to follow to get the Installation (LI) and Operation Permit (LO). Before using this innovative model, for each individual permitting process there were a need to prepare a different Environmental Impact Assessment Study (EIA) that, considering the characteristics of the locations, usually contained the same environmental diagnosis and the same drilling rigs and fluids descriptions. Not only repeated work was been done by operators, but also the Environmental Authority had the same effort in analyze all the documents. As a consequence, the use of the new model reduced the number of processes and allowed the establishment of unified mitigating and compensating environmental projects (environmental education, environmental monitoring and social communication programs). Finally, the unification of environmental projects, contracts and reports allows a better HSE planning and management of the activities by the operators. It is important to stand out that such environmental projects are more comprehensive and complex. On the other hand, allows an integrated vision aggregating value to the actions derived form the environmental permitting processes.

Oil Spill Emergency Plan Exercises in exploration and production (E&P) offshore are performed as required under the single Oil Spill Emergency Plan (PEI) for the installation to verify the effectiveness of the structure response to a possible oil spill that exceeds the limits of the offshore platform and reaches the sea. These exercises are based on accidental hypotheses arising from accidental risk analysis, among which incidents of oil pollution and apply to the exploration, drilling and production offshore activities. This work will be presented as they are carried out simulated emergency incidents of oil pollution in the offshore activities of E&P, that exceeds the limits of the offshore platform, by geographical area, covering the actions developed from the planning, implementation and review of the exercise by the company and the Brazilian environmental federal authority (IBAMA) and improvements when compared to those made previously by platform. The results of these simulations, using the strengths and improvement opportunities identified, show how the structure is the company's response to an incident of oil pollution at sea, considering the performance of the organizational structure of response, operational procedures and use and effectiveness of response equipment, so the company can assess whether its strategy to respond to incidents of oil pollution is established and implemented or needs adjustment.