The regressive erosion of the Coca River has wreaked havoc on the strategic complex located in the area, made up of several oil pipelines.
The Government of Ecuador ordered “urgently” cleaning and remediation actions after an oil spill occurred in an area of the Amazon due to the rupture of the private Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (OCP), reported the Communication Secretariat of the Presidency.
Through the Ministry of the Environment, “The Government has urgently and immediately ordered the management of contingency, cleaning and remediation activities” in the area of the town of Piedra Fina, the State portfolio said in a statement on January 29, without specifying the number of spilled crude.
He added that workers remain “environmentally monitoring the affected area”, after the breakage of the OCP registered on Friday afternoon in that area located on the border between the Amazonian provinces of Napo and Sucumbíos (border with Peru and Colombia).
The Napo Province Emergency Operations Committee activated its activities to guarantee the distribution of water for its inhabitants.
According to the Government, the detachment of stones due to heavy rains affected “four pipes of the infrastructure” of the OCP, which transports some 450,000 barrels of crude oil daily.
The day before, the company pointed out that the damage was “recorded in an area where the tube is not directly exposed to the rivers.” He added that his staff worked “intensely to avoid any risk of this (spill) reaching water sources.”
The impact of the oil spill reaches the Kichwa community of Panduyaku in the province of Sucumbíos; community members request to prevent the communities of the lower basin and immediate attention from the authorities pic.twitter.com/rROIk6bhDH
– CONFENIAE (@ confeniae1) January 29, 2022
The company has not suspended the reception or exports of crude oil.
Ecuador exploited 494,000 barrels of crude oil a day between January and November, most of it by state-owned Petroecuador, according to Ecuador’s Central Bank.
In the Piedra Fina sector, in December, the OCP and the state-owned Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System (SOTE) had to build alternative branches of their pipelines and suspend oil pumping due to soil erosion caused by the Coca River.
In May 2020, in the same sector there was a collapse that destroyed sections of the SOTE, the OCP and a pipeline. Then, there was a leak of some 15,000 barrels that ended up being dumped into three Amazonian rivers, affecting the riverside populations, some of them indigenous. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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