A Colombian indigenous community blocking repairs to the Cano Limon oil pipeline denied Monday that it skipped a meeting Friday with three ministers, insisting representatives will attend an April 25 encounter where they will demand the pipeline be moved and that a nearby drilling project be canceled.
The 500-mile Cano Limon pipeline connecting oil fields in eastern Arauca and Meta provinces to the port of Covenas has been offline since March 25 after at least 19 bombings so far in 2014 by suspected leftist guerrillas.
Although it was built in the 1980s with a capacity of 220,000 b/d, the line was moving an average of 72,000 b/d shortly before the closure, the government has said.
The U’wa indigenous community in the Toledo township of North Santander province, the pipeline’s halfway point, has said it will not permit repair crews on its reservation until the government agrees to certain conditions, including a promise to move the pipeline off its land.
“We are tired of the explosions on the pipeline that have ruined our ancestral lands, polluted our water and put our people in danger. We want it relocated,” Heber Tegria Uncaria, vice president and spokesman for the U’wa Association, said in a telephone interview.
Another pre-condition of allowing crews on the community’s land is a commitment by the government to cancel the so-called Magallanes drilling project planned by state-controlled Ecopetrol because it is located within 300 meters of “the sacred Cubogan River,” Tegria Uncaria said.
In addition to 72,000 b/d from the Cano Limon oil field operated by Occidental Petroleum, the pipeline closure has meant the loss of up to 110,000 b/d in deliveries on the newly completed Bicentennial Pipeline, which ties into the Cano Limon line at Banadia, from heavy oil fields in the eastern Llanos region. The Bicentennial line has been closed since late February.
Mining and energy minister Amylkar Acosta issued a statement Saturday saying indigenous leaders “decided not to keep” an appointment with the government on Friday meant to craft an agreement that would have permitted workers to repair the damaged pipeline.
U’wa spokesman Tegria Uncaria said Monday the community never agreed to a meeting Friday in the village of Toledo for “logistical reasons” and that it was sticking to a previously set April 25 date in the village of China, where the community’s leadership is based.
The U’was have called for neighboring indigenous communities to send members there to show support in the face of a possible “military intervention” by the Colombian government in a bid to force a re-opening of the line, according to a statement issued by the community last week.
“We want to make it clear we are a peaceful community. We hope the government doesn’t use force because we are determined to talk about resolutions,” Tegria Uncaria said.
