Lima, Peru – Pluspetrol SA, Peru’s largest oil and gas producer, resumed pumping operations in the northern Amazon jungle after natives ended a 13-day takeover of the company’s oilfields, Energy Minister Juan Valdivia said.
Some 700 Achuar Indians, who seized wells in Blocks 1-AB and 8 on Oct. 11 to pressure Buenos Aires-based Pluspetrol to process polluted water, ended the takeover after the government agreed to monitor operations and distribute 5 percent of a regional oil tax in the area, Valdivia said today at a press conference in Lima.
“The company has begun pumping crude reserves through the pipeline, and in the next few hours, will resume operations at the wells,” Valdivia said. “The Achuar have ended the takeover.”
The seizure cost $15 million in lost production for Pluspetrol, which produces 45,000 barrels a day, more than half of Peru’s total production, he said. Peru is counting on $1.5 billion in crude oil and natural gas exports this year to fuel a 6.6 percent economic expansion, according to the central bank.
The 5,000-strong Achuar-Schiwiar tribe, one of 60 native groups in Peru, inhabits the Amazon jungle in Peru and Ecuador. Pluspetrol will spend 40 million soles ($12.5 million) on public works projects and health and food aid programs in the area, 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) northeast of Lima, Valdivia said.
Waste Water
The company will also reinject into the ground 100 percent of its waste water by the end of 2008, Valdivia said. Pluspetrol dumps 1 million barrels a day of toxic waste into the Corrientes River, according to Washington-based environmentalist group Amazon Watch.
Pluspetrol Peru manager Norberto Benito didn’t return calls to his office seeking comment.
The closely held company, which bought Block 8 from state oil company Petroperu SA in 1996 and 1-AB from Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. in 1998, also produces 140 million cubic feet of natural gas and 37,000 barrels a day of liquid gas at Peru’s largest natural gasfields, Camisea.
Crude oil for December delivery fell 52 cents, or 0.9 percent, to close at $58.81 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
