Peru’s oldest and largest Amazonian oil field poised for clean up (original) (raw)
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Controlling Abandoned Oil Installations: Ruination and Ownership in Northern Peruvian Amazonia
Indigenous Life Projects and Extractivism, 2018
Oil extraction has led to severe environmental degradation in Loreto in Northern Peruvian Amazonia and has created landscapes of scattered debris. It started in 1972 when the Peruvian government granted concessions of oil field 1AB/192 to the American Occidental Petroleum Corporation (OXY) and oil field 8-8X to Peru's state-owned Petroperú (La Torre 1998). In spite of changes in the corporations operating these oil fields, destructive environmental practices have characterised oil extraction here for four decades. As early as 1984, the National Bureau for the Assessment of Natural Resources (ONERN) declared oil field 1AB/192 one of Peru's most polluted areas (ONERN 1984). Up to 2009, Pluspetrol-which won the bid for Block 8 and acquired rights to oil field 1AB/192 in 2000-continued discharging toxic effluents with a high
Water contamination from oil extraction activities in Northern Peruvian Amazonian rivers
Oil extraction activities in the Northern Peruvian Amazon have generated a long-standing socio-environmental conflict between oil companies, governmental authorities and indigenous communities, partly derived from the discharge of produced waters containing high amounts of heavy metals and hydrocarbons. To assess the impact of produced waters discharges we conducted a meta-analysis of 2951 river water and 652 produced water chemical analyses from governmental institutions and oil companies reports, collected in four Amazonian river basins (Mara~ non, Tigre, Corrientes and Pastaza) and their tributaries. Produced water discharges had much higher concentrations of chloride, barium, cad-mium and lead than are typically found in fresh waters, resulting in the widespread contamination of the natural water courses. A significant number of water samples had levels of cadmium, barium, hexavalent chromium and lead that did not meet Peruvian and international water standards. Our study shows that spillage of produced water in Peruvian Amazon rivers placed at risk indigenous population and wildlife during several decades. Furthermore, the impact of such activities in the headwaters of the Amazon extended well beyond the boundaries of oil concessions and national borders, which should be taken into consideration when evaluating large scale anthropogenic impacts in the Amazon.
A Toxic Development: Pollution and Change in an Amazonian Oil Frontier
Commodity Frontiers and Global Capitalist Expansion, 2019
Although science widely recognizes the importance of the Western edge of the Amazon Basin for Earth’s ecological systems, it remains a region of oil extraction, with drilling sites dating back to the mid-twentieth century. The oil economy has a long-standing social and economic prominence, even in its most remote regions. It has created a deep dependency on cash flow in several local communities and has diminished, by its devastating environmental impacts, other sources of livelihood. As prices of oil entered a lower cycle in the global market during the 2010s, tensions emerged in extraction sites. Sabotage and lack of maintenance of oil pipelines, due to budget cuts, caused several disastrous spills that ruined water sources on which communities depended. Spills caused pollution, affecting directly local people’s health and well-being, but people have also perceived changes in the form of infrastructure and cash investment in remediation. Those might be regarded as a form of ephemeral, and toxic, “development.” This chapter aims to explore the kind of toxic development the region is now experiencing grounded in fieldwork in the Peruvian Marañon Basin.
Oil drilling damage, prior consultation and environmental conservation in Peru
Oil drilling damage, prior consultation and environmental conservation in Peru, 2021
Oil exploitation in the region of Loreto has affected the environment, the roles of the ecosystems, health, and the ways of life of indigenous communities. The Quechua, Achuar, Urarina, Kichwa, and Kukama peoples, together known as the Puinamudt organization, are fighting for their right to prior consultation to be respected in view of the forthcoming concession for an operator to exploit Lot 192. By Puinamudt for Debates Indígenas.
Oil dependency in the Peruvian Amazon
For more than 40 years oil activity has brought destruction to the ecosystems and the indigenous people of four river basins leading to the Amazon river in Peru. This report investigates the devastating activities of oil operator PlusPetrol Norte on the lives and livelihoods of the Kichwa people from the Rio TIgre, Peru.
Chapter 7. Crude Contamination
Subterranean Estates
Between 2004 and 2007, dozens of judicial inspections of alleged contaminated sites unfolded in the Ecuadorian Amazon as part of a lawsuit filed in 2003 on behalf of thirty thousand local inhabitants against the Chevron Corporation for environmental contamination. 1 Presented in the Superior Court of Nueva Loja 2 (or Lago Agrio as the town is commonly known)-a bustling Amazonian oil frontier town-the lawsuit alleged that, between 1964 and 1990, Texaco (which merged with Chevron in 2001) spewed industrial wastes in its oil concession, contaminating the environment during its thirty-odd years of operating in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. Industrial wastes, plaintiffs claimed, devastated the local ecology and endangered the health of local inhabitants. The judicial inspections comprised the legal teams from both sides accompanying the judge (variously followed by the press, interested observers, and local inhabitants) as he tramped through the secondary rainforest surrounding former Texaco oil wells, processing stations, and exposed or purportedly remediated waste pits. At each site the plaintiffs' and the defendant's team of technical experts extracted soil and water samples, examined them visually, and sent them off to laboratories to be analyzed for their chemical content. Two written reports-one from the plaintiffs and one from the defendant-with multiple appendices resulted from each site 1 Initially, both sides agreed to complete judicial inspections at 122 alleged contaminated sites. Given the length of time needed to complete an inspection and analyze the data emerging from it, and given that the results garnered from the inspections were by and large corroborative, the plaintiffs proposed, and the court agreed, that the number of inspections required of alleged contaminated sites be reduced to fifty-four.
Debates Indígenas, 2022
In the middle of the Awajún territory, the permanent dredging activity and the use of mercury in gold mining activities generate constant contamination of the river and therefore, the water is no longer fit for human consumption. However, the inhabitants of the basin continue to eat the contaminated fish, which directly affects their health. The latest studies reveal that one out of every three children is anemic and has high rates of chronic child malnutrition. Faced with this worrying situation, the Awajún communities are trying to find solutions in an organized manner. By Gil Inoach Shawit for Debates Indígenas.
The Water Footprint of Heavy Oil Extraction in Colombia: A Case Study
2017
This paper is a Colombian case study that calculates the total water footprint (blue, green, and grey) for heavy crude production (11.5 average API gravity) occurring in three fields, located in the Magdalena watershed. In this case study, the highest direct blue footprint registers 0.19 m 3 /barrel and is heavily influenced by cyclic steam stimulation practices. This value could be reduced if the water coming out of the production well was to be cleaned with highly advanced wastewater treatment technologies. The highest grey water footprint, at 0.06 m 3 /barrel, is minimal and could be reduced with conventional wastewater treatment technologies and rigorous maintenance procedures. The green water footprint is negligible and cannot be reduced for legal reasons. The indirect blue water footprint is also considerable at 0.19-0.22 m 3 /barrel and could be reduced if electricity was produced onsite instead of purchased. In addition, the paper identifies methodological flaws in the Colombian National Water Study (2014), which wrongly calculated the direct blue water footprint, leading to a 5 to 32-fold sub-estimation. It also ignored the grey, with important implications for water resource policy and management. To rectify the situation, future National Surveys should follow the procedure published here.
Chevron-Texaco impact towards Ecuadorian communities
2020
Background Texaco is former U.S. based petroleum corporation that was, during the late 20th century, is one of the world’s largest oil companies in terms of sales. The company originally conducted its business within Texas and it expanded to all states of the United States and established operations in many other parts of the world, including Latin America, Indonesia, and the Middle East. It was primarily engaged in the production, refining, marketing, and shipping of crude oil and natural gas. Texaco was acquired by Chevron Corporation in 2001. Chevron-Texaco case is arguably one the world’s largest environment justice case that have been operated in Ecuador for almost 25 year between 1964 and 1992. During its operations in Ecuador, Texaco-Chevron knew they were using technologies that were sub-par compared to the more advanced environmentally friendly technologies used in the United States. And then lead to Ecuadorian environmental damage. In 2011, the Supreme Court in Ecuador found that Chevron-Texaco had deposited Industrial refuse in jungles, water-bodies, roads and farmlands adjacent to the communities, including approximately 880 Olympic pool-sized pits filled with petroleum waste; 650 thousand barrels of crude oil spilled in the jungle and on farmland; and an estimated 60 billion gallons of toxic waste dumped into waterways. In addition, the court determined that more than 1,500 kilometers of Amazonian roads have been covered in crude oil in recent decades. The plaintiffs also filed substantial evidence of elevated cancer rates, other health problems, and contamination of traditional food supplies, providing the basis for an initial judgment of more than US$17 billion. This lower court decision was upheld by an Ecuadorian appeals court, and reduced to US$9.5 billion by the National Court of Justice of Ecuador. However, the Ecuadorian subsidiary of Texaco-Chevron was bankrupt; consequently the plaintiffs sought compensation from the company's other international operations. This paper highlight Chevron-Texaco Ecuadorian case as an example of the indication of challenges in achieving greater accountability, transparency, and CSR (corporate social responsibility) in the oil and gas sector, in order to create a global set of equal minimum standards and regulations that will keep transnational companies accountable as they invest and earn fair income, we as a society must step up and create our own system that protects our environment and set standards for responsible and sustainable economic growth and development. In hope that this paper will bring more awareness within the society regarding to promotion of CSR and environmental justice in energy industry. Word count: 427 words --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- citation: Texaco Inc. (2014, February 19). Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Texaco-Inc History of Texaco. CHEVRON CORP., http://www.texaco.com/about-timeline.aspx (last visited Apr. 6, 2014). https://www.oba.org/Sections/Aboriginal-Law/Articles/Articles2018/January-2018/Chevron-Decision-may-signal-challenges-remain-to-a#\_edn6