The ITT block produces heavy crude oil that flows ready for export and does not require burners

He crude oil is extracted from U sand in well 23, the youngest in the Ishpingo field, which was drilled and commissioned ten days ago, is heavy… but flowing. It is not tar, as the Minister of Energy has described it in recent days, and, despite being the heaviest in the block (with an API of 10 degrees), it is mixed with other sands of Ishping, Tambococha and Tiputini (14 degrees API) and arrives, after blending with other crude oils from the Northeast, directly for export from Balao with an average API of 16 degrees.

Last Thursday, Walter Paredes, ITT Asset Manager, He performed the demonstration under unruly sun and ambient temperatures between 38 and 39 degrees Celsius, opening the way to the black liquid and collecting it in a glass container. Explain, at the bottom a huge drill from the Chinese company CCDC, that the obtained oil is excellent: “It is flowing oil, with degree 10 and zero percent water. It is ready for export. Gone is the theory that it was tar and that Petroecuador could not get it, but that international companies had to do it.

Currently, the ITT block has 10 platforms with a total of 225 wells. Four platforms are in Tiputini, four in Tambococha and two in Ishping. The new school of production, different from that of the 70s or 80s, in which nature had to be displaced for each well and in which waste was thrown into pools, is completely different. Now the perforation is in the cluster. In other words, from the same platform you can drill underground and reach up to two kilometers away.

“At ITT, we don’t have lighters,” says Renato Valdez, ITT’s production manager. He explains that after obtaining the oil, it is transported by pipeline to the collection system located in the Tiputini Processing Center. At this point, crude oil must be separated from water and gas. Crude oil and water are drained to storage tanks. Oil is drained to block 12, while water is re-injected for crude oil mobility. Gas is used and it currently produces 4 MW of electricity. The rest, the one that is not used, is not burned in lighters, but sent to some thermal oxidizers, he says.

A processing plant, which is currently operating efficiently, ten platforms, a crude oil pipeline, among others, are the most valuable asset (a total investment of $1,800 million) that would have to be withdrawn from ITT in the event of a victory in the Yasuní referendum vote to be held on August 20 and to ask if they agree to stop the extraction of crude oil from ITT.

in Tiputini processing center, suddenly an alarm sounds, loud, indicating that an incident has occurred. All workers go to the meeting place. It’s a simulation, but it’s being used for Petroecuador technicians to confirm that while there have been 26 reports of spills, discharges, leaks and fires at the ITT, in its eight years of operation, none were of particular characteristics. catastrophic nor did it affect nature. Ricardo Benítez, Mayor for Occupational Health, Industrial Safety and Environmental Control (SSA), explains that during all that time, the equivalent of 18 barrels was spilled, which is a very small part of the production of 1000 million barrels of water and crude oil.

From 26 events, only one was level two and the other was level three. The former was in the lead and the latter had to be reported to the community but was duly trapped. Benítez reminded that block ITT 43 is the only one constantly monitored by an envoy from the Ministry of the Environment, while Petroecuador has biologists who also carry out constant monitoring.

For the journey from Tiputini to Tambococha and then to Ishping, there is only one road with a width of approx. 4 meters, on which two vehicles cannot cross at the same time, due to the narrowness of the ecological road. In several sectors of the road you can see recessed steps built exclusively for the movement of the sector’s fauna. Environmental technicians say that they managed to record baker pigs, snakes and other typical jungle animals in the cameras installed in these places. They also ensure that the ecological approach is not flat, but has some variation, due to the fact that a number of formations of the jungle itself, important for flora and fauna, are respected. In this way, the aforementioned 15-meter highway, which was mentioned by several environmental sectors, does not appear.

However, it was not always like that. Technicians also say that for the construction of the buried pipeline that transports oil from the platforms to the processing plant, a space of 15 meters had to be opened. Optimal fibers were laid on that same route, of which there is no trace today. Everything is green. It is paradoxical, say the workers, that in the event of a victory in the referendum, they would be forced to clear the bushes again in order to remove these facilities as well.