by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 10, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Amazon Watch
Grassroots opposition is mounting as ConocoPhillips’ plans to drill for oil within the fresh-water source for Peru’s largest rainforest city, Amazon Watch said today on the occasion of the company’s annual shareholder meeting in Houston, Texas. Conoco is currently advancing plans to drill exploratory oil wells in Blocks 129 and 123, found within one of the most ecologically sensitive regions in the world.
According to a May 2012 map produced by PROCREL, the Loreto regional environmental authority, ConocoPhillips is planning a total of 16 oil platforms and 48 wells between Block 129 and the adjacent Block 123. Thirteen of these platforms are found within the Upper Nanay-Pintuyacu-Chambira Regional Conservation Area.
“Conoco’s shareholders need to understand that the company’s plans in northern Peru are being met with increasing popular opposition across the region,” said Robert Collier, Corporate Campaigns Director at Amazon Watch. “The reputational risks for Conoco grow by the day.”
“The oil company’s installation and Block 129 in the Nanay watershed has alarmed us because we all know the consequences of oil extraction in other Amazonian watershed,” said José Manuyana, president of the social organization Colectivo Amazonía in today’s local paper La Región. “We know the devastating results and are worried this will happen in the Nanay headwaters which provide drinking water to all of Iquitos’ 500,000 citizens.”
In March of this year citizens of Peru’s Loreto region organized themselves into the Iquitos Water Defense Committee, specifically in response to Conoco’s plans. Today the Committee demanded that the regional government hold a public hearing to explain why they are allowing ConocoPhillips to advance with the exploration. They have also asked that information about Conoco’s plans be made public and that the Regional Government respect prior decisions to exclude mining activities from ecologically sensitive areas.
According to the Iquitos Declaration, issued by the Iquitos Water Defense Committee on April 24th of this year, “The situation is currently getting worse. ConocoPhillips has an oil concession in the headwaters of the Nanay River, even though the first article of the Regional Order No. 020-2009-GRL-CR of October 15th 2009 declared of regional public interest the conservation and protection of the headwaters of watersheds found in the Loreto Region. For us, this river is the primary source of water supply for the city and source of other resources like fish, bush meat, and wood for our house construction.”
International scientific experts are also expressing concern about the probable impacts of oil activities on this ecologically sensitive area. According to Bob Stallard, a bio geochemist who has sampled and analyzed waters from throughout the Amazon and Orinoco river basins since 1976, “Great cities try to protect their water supplies, and Iquitos has one of the best. Based on hundreds of published analyses of dissolved salts in rivers, the Nanay is among the purest rivers in Amazonia. Spills of formation waters and wastes associated with drilling could damage the Nanay as a drinking-water supply.”
The Iquitos Declaration cites information that seismic testing has carved 778 kilometers of lines through the jungle, clearing over 180 hectares of forest cover and detonating more than 15,500 seismic explosives. The statement continues, “now they are trying to get the approval to drill 18 exploratory wells that would function from six platforms within Block 129.”
“Biodiversity in the Nanay basin is spectacular. In three weeks we recorded more than 1,800 species of plants and animals. Because the Nanay River begins in the Peruvian lowlands – not in the Colombian or Ecuadorian Andes like many other rivers in Loreto – it created a singular opportunity to conserve almost the entire watershed,” said Corine Vriesendorp, Ph.D., Director of the Andes-Amazon Program at The Field Museum in Chicago. “Clean water and robust fisheries were the rallying cries for creating the regional conservation area. Now oil activities threaten to negatively impact both water quality and fish stocks, critical for forest dwellers in the Nanay basin and urban residents in Iquitos.”
From Amazon Watch: http://amazonwatch.org/news/2012/0509-conoco-drilling-threatens-water-source-for-half-million-in-peru
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 6, 2012 | Mining & Drilling, Toxification
By Environment News Service
A federal government proposal requiring oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing only after the completion of fracking operations is running into opposition from environmental groups.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves the high pressure injection of chemicals, sand and water into shale rock thousands of feet deep, fracturing it to release hydrocarbons trapped in tight spaces.
The Bureau of Land Management Friday issued a proposed rule that would, for the first time, require companies to publicly disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations on 700 million subsurface acres of federal public lands and and 56 million subsurface acres Indian lands – but not before the chemicals are pumped deep underground.
The current fracking-enabled gas drilling boom across the United States has brought reports of poisoned drinking water, polluted air, mysterious animal deaths, and sick families. But industry secrecy has made it difficult for researchers to get the facts on health and environmental impacts of fracking.
Currently, there is no specific requirement for operators to disclose these chemicals on federal and Indian lands, where 90 percent of the wells drilled use hydraulic fracturing to greatly increase the volume of oil and gas available for production.
Now, the BLM proposes three new practices to protect public health, drinking water, and the environment. First, the agency proposes to require the public disclosure of chemicals used in fracking operations on federal and Indian lands after fracturing operations have been completed.
Second, the BLM proposes to require confirmation that wells used in fracturing operations meet appropriate construction standards. The agency says this would improve assurances of well-bore integrity to verify that fluids used in wells during fracturing operations are not escaping.
And third, the agency proposes to confirm that oil and gas operators have a water management plan in place for handling fracturing fluids that flow back to the surface.
“As the President has made clear, this administration’s energy strategy is an all-out effort to boost American production of every available source of energy,” said Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, announcing the proposed rule late Friday.
Read more from Environment News Service:
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | May 2, 2012 | Mining & Drilling
By Rupert Neate / The Guardian
BP is planning to start three new oil drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico this year. The launch of the new rigs will bring the number of BP rigs in the Gulf to eight – more than the oil giant had before the devastating Deepwater Horizon disaster three years ago.
Bernard Looney, BP’s executive in charge of new wells, said BP is expecting to spend $4bn (£2.5bn) on new developments in the Gulf of Mexico this year and hopes to “invest at least that much every year over the next decade”.
“After much soul-searching in the fall of 2010, we concluded it would be wrong to walk away [from the Gulf of Mexico],” Looney said at an offshore oil conference in Houston, Texas, on Monday. “We would have been walking away not only from our past, but from a key component of our future.”
He said the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which killed 11 people, had “challenged us to the core”, but said the company has been working hard to help prevent “such an accident from ever happening again”.
While conceding that BP was in “absolutely no position to preach”, he called on the industry to adopt broader safety standards.
Last October US regulators granted BP its first permit to drill a new well since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, that spewed 4.9m barrels of oil into the fragile Gulf of Mexico ecosystem. The permit, for drilling in BP’s Kaskida field 250 miles south-west of New Orleans, was approved after BP’s well design met more stringent post-spill standards.
Looney did not state where the new rigs will drill, but industry figures said they expect an appraisal well in BP’s “giant” Tiber field 250 miles south-west of New Orleans. BP has long wanted to explore the area it discovered in 2009, but had been banned by regulators.
The company’s next big project, Mad Dog phase 2, is expected to start production towards the end of the decade. Looney said the field, which was discovered in 1998 and first began producing oil in 2005, holds more than 4bn barrels of oil – enough to promote it to the “super-giant” oil field category.
From The Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/apr/30/bp-new-gulf-mexico-oil-rigs
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 26, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest
By David Hill / Mongabay
The company hoping to exploit the oil deposits slated to transform Peru’s economy has been declared to be endangering the lives of indigenous people living in “voluntary isolation” by the country’s indigenous affairs department (INDEPA).
Perenco, an Anglo-French company with headquarters in London and Paris, is currently seeking approval from Peru’s Energy Ministry (MEM) to develop its operations in the Loreto region in the north of the country.
MEM has already blocked Perenco once this year by refusing to approve the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the next stage of its operations. One of the reasons given was the company’s failure to obtain INDEPA’s “technical opinion” on its EIA.
That opinion, expressed in a seven page report, was forthcoming on 20 February and sent by MEM to Benoit de la Fouchardiere, Perenco’s general manager in Peru, on 5 March.
Perenco fails to acknowledge “the total superimposition of Lot 67A and Lot 67B by a proposal to create a reserve for indigenous people who live in voluntary isolation,” INDEPA says.
“This is concerning, given that the exclusion of this proposed reserve doesn’t allow for the identification of the possible negative social and environmental impacts of the project on the isolated people who live there.”
INDEPA is especially critical of Perenco’s Anthropological Contingency Plan, which it says denies the existence of the “isolated” people and thereby increases their vulnerability if contact with them is made.
“No measures to prevent the transmission of illnesses or epidemics are considered, as they should be according to regulations and technical health guides about indigenous people in isolation or initial contact,” it says.
INDEPA’s report is potentially embarrassing for Perenco because it has repeatedly claimed there are no “voluntarily isolated,” or “uncontacted,” people in the region where it is operating. Its Latin American regional manager once compared them to the UK’s Loch Ness monster, declaring, “Much talk but never any evidence.”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 25, 2012 | Colonialism & Conquest, Mining & Drilling
By Dawn Paley / The Dominion
The hard fought battle against the Keystone XL pipeline, which was slated to carry tar sands crude across Canada and the United States to port in Texas, kicked struggles against Canadian-owned oil and gas companies up to a new level. Resistance dominated headlines in Canada, while rural folk, Indigenous people, celebrities, and climate activists in the US took direct action to block Calgary-based TransCanada’s plans. In northern BC, Indigenous-led resistance to the proposed Enbridge pipeline, along with a host of other US-owned infrastructure projects, have become front and centre issues for environmentalists and activists across Canada.
The role of Canadian oil, gas and pipeline companies in other parts of the world is, however, less discussed. Many activists have focused on the behavior of the Canadian mining sector, a natural choice given the size of that sector compared to the oil and gas industries in Canada. “In Canada, a major difference between the oil and gas and mining sectors is that while many of Canada’s largest companies are oil and gas producers, some with integrated operations, they are not particularly prominent in the global arena just now,” reads a 2008 report by the Economic Commission on Latin America.
It’s been four years since that report was released, and it might be time to revisit the idea that the Canadian oil and gas sector hasn’t gained prominence on a global scale. Take the case of Latin America, where a host of oil and gas companies based in Calgary and Toronto have been increasing their holdings throughout the hemisphere, taking advantage of the same lax legal standards Canadian mining companies enjoy.
A study by Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP found that in 2010, Canadian oil and gas companies made over $35 billion in mergers and acquisitions in Central and Latin America, and the region is the second most attractive place (after the United States) for Canadian oil companies to invest outside of Canada. Colombia in particular has quickly become a favourite destination for this new surge of Canadian oil and gas investment.
At the same time as the Canadian Senate approved a free trade agreement between Canada and Colombia in June of 2010, a government-hosted bidding fair on oil and gas properties was taking place in Cartagena, Colombia. “I have some good news for our Canadian friends. The Senate has just approved a free trade agreement…so that opens the way for a lot of opportunities and our government is very happy about that,” said then-Colombian Energy and Mining Minister Hernan Martinez to corporate representatives bidding on oil and gas concessions in Cartagena that day.
Canadian oil companies were among the chief supporters of the agreement, which was roundly criticized because of the continued killings, kidnapping and displacement of Indigenous people, trade unionists, peasants, dissenters and the poor in Colombia. A free trade agreement with Peru was approved by the Canadian Senate a little later, on the heels of a massacre in the Amazon province of Bagua where an estimated 100 people were killed during protests in defense of their lands.
Pacific Rubiales and Talisman, two of the most important Canadian oil companies in Colombia, have already come under intense criticism linked to the high environmental and social cost of their operations.
Read more from The Dominion: http://www.dominionpaper.ca/articles/4439
