On August 17, Chevron appealed a recent Brazilian court decision barring the company and its drilling-rig operator Transocean Ltd. from operating in the country . . . the court decision came in response to an oil spill last November at the Chevron-operated ultra-deep Frade offshore oil field, which caused a spill of around 3,700 barrels of crude oil . . . Frade contains recoverable reserves of between 200 million and 300 million barrels of oil . . . Brazil’s overall offshore oil reserves are believed to hold 50 billion barrels of oil . . . Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency cited Chevron for 25 counts related to the spill and said the company could be fined up to the $24.8 million allowed by law, although the total fine will be set later this month . . . however, state-run Petrobras took the side of Chevron on August 16, arguing “there is no motive for this embargo” and vowed to assist to the two companies in fighting the ban . . . Chevron and Transocean are desperate to overcome the injunction since the ban would lock the companies out of the Brazil’s huge, largely untapped offshore oil reserves . . . although the Brazilian government is probably taking this action to benefit Brazilian oil company Petrobras over foreign companies, Petrobras recognizes that the ban will hurt its production from Frade and other oil fields since it needs technology from major Western oil firms to tap Brazil’s ultra-deep offshore oil reserves.