Ten days after a disastrous oil spill polluted Rio's Guanabara Bay, environmental officials in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil have discovered another leaky oil pipeline belonging to the government petroleum company Petrobras.
The small leak was discovered in a line near an oil refinery in Cubatao, about 40 miles southeast of Sao Paulo, the Sao Paulo State Environmental Office said.
About 52 gallons of a substance used to dilute fuel oil leaked out, environmental engineer Maria Alencar said in a televised interview from the site.
She described the environmental impact as negligible. Still, she said, Petrobras could be fined if investigators find the leak occurred due to negligence or inadequate maintenance.
Petrobras was fined a record $28.4 million for the disastrous leak of 338,000 gallons of crude oil from the Reduc refinery into Guanabara Bay last week.
The company got a 30 percent discount for paying the fine in cash.
The oil from the Reduc spill washed up on beaches and spread through protected mangrove swamps, an important breeding ground for fish and wildlife. The federal environmental protection agency in Brazil, Ibama, said it will take the area at least a decade to recover.