“Pluspetrol Norte: A history of unpaid sanctions and oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon” – 30 September 2022

The Kichwa community of 12 de Octubre in Loreto experienced multiple oil spills earlier this year due to activities in the region by the oil and gas producing company Pluspetrol Norte.

The company has received 73 sanctions imposed by Peru’s Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA) between 2011 and 2021, with fines totaling over $47 million.

Pluspetrol Norte has pending trials with the Peruvian government for attempting to liquidate the company and for not taking responsibility for their environmental liabilities... A thick dark stain spreads near the Piedra Negra ravine, a source of water for the Kichwa community of 12 de Octubre in Loreto. The Indigenous community members say that they do not need to see the stain to know that they are facing a new oil spill. All they need to do is smell the odor — which often gives them nausea and headaches — to know that the nightmare is back. On March 2 and March 17, 2022, the community complained of a familiar problem: again spills in the community, again in Block 192, and again worries about the risk it poses to the lives of people, animals, and plants.

“This month, a well shattered because the pipes are old [and] corroded. The oil has spilled and is reaching the ravine, very close to the Tigris River; it is very dangerous. All the companies that have operated [there] have not been worried about maintenance,” says Hugo Carijano Tapuy, a former Kichwa leader and resident of the 12 de Octubre community... In this area of the Peruvian Amazon, oil is always present. In March alone, two spills were recorded in the community, a total of four spills this year, according to Tom Chung, the Indigenous monitor for the community. But two reports from Peru’s Environmental Evaluation and Enforcement Agency (OEFA) —one from 2020 and one from 2017— mention two additional events inside the same area... Carijano says that during the operations of Pluspetrol Norte, community members complained of the constant crude oil spills. They were sent to the police or were denounced, according to Carijano. The oil company filed a complaint —for which a trial began in March of this year— against a group of Indigenous leaders for aggravated robbery, kidnapping, and possession of weapons. While Pluspetrol Norte focuses on this legal action, the communities insist that the company has escaped its responsibility for the liabilities left in Block 192, alongside the millions of dollars it has to pay in fines…In Peru alone, according to the database, the environmental authority has begun 143 disciplinary procedures involving 16 oil companies. These 16 companies have also been fined. Pluspetrol Norte leads the list in Peru, with 73 disciplinary procedures that resulted in 72 fines imposed by the OEFA —between 2011 and 2021– for its operations in Block 192 and Block 8. The total fines exceed $47 million…