Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 32

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The bypass links will benefit both systems by Nevertheless, representatives of indigenous
increasing the distance between the pipeline communities in Ecuador have complained that
routes and the bed of the Coca river, Soledispa SOTE, OCP and PetroEcuador are not doing
said. Both SOTE and the fuel pipeline are now enough to clean up the oil and fuels spilled in
200-400 metres away from the river and are fur- April.
ther from the areas where the Marker and Mon- Mongabay quoted Huataraco community
tana rivers join the Coca, she noted. elder Miguel Grefa as saying that indigenous
She went on to say that PetroEcuador groups wanted to see more action.
intended to construct one more bypass link for “Today, the leaders of the communities had
SOTE. This third bypass will be 0.79 km long, to travel for several hours in a canoe, leaving our
she stated. families to demand attention and justice from
Privately-owned Heavy Crude Pipeline the government and the companies PetroE-
(OCP), the operator of a system with a capacity cuador and OCP,” he said. “But if they don’t do
of 173,086 bpd, has also built a bypass line, Mon- anything, we will return with our whole com-
gabay reported. munities. We do not have water. The bottles
It quoted Roberto Grijalva, OCP’s operations [distributed by the companies] are not enough.
manager, as saying that his company had estab- We have to use the river water even if it is con-
lished a 0.79-km bypass that would allow it to taminated.” ™
avoid areas affected by erosion.
Grijalva also said that the pipeline opera-
tor had already completed more than 60% of
its planned environmental remediation work.
“This implies that there is still work to be done
and for this, we have more than 1,200 people
working to achieve comprehensive reparation.
OCP Ecuador is doing it committedly, without
sparing resources, and will continue to do so
until the end,” he told Mongabay.
He also noted that OCP was working with
PetroEcuador to provide services to communi-
ties in areas affected by flooding, landslides and
erosion. The companies have distributed water
and food and have also provided medical care,
he said. SOTE and OCP were damaged in April (Image: Ecuador Ministry of Hydrocarbons)

VENEZUEL A
China pauses Venezuelan loan repayments

CHINA has reportedly agreed to grant Vene- President Nicholas Madura from office.
zuela a grace period on billions of dollars’ worth US sanctions have even seen state-owned
of oil-for-loan repayments this year. China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) halt
Chinese banks have extended a grace period direct crude purchases from PDVSA, Reuters
on $19bn worth of Venezuelan loans until the cited other Venezuelan sources as saying.
end of December, Reuters reported on August The sanctions have forced state-run Pet-
13, citing unnamed Venezuelan sources. roChina to dissolve its Singaporean-based
“This [arrangement with China] will be in shipping joint venture with PDVSA, Reuters
place until at least December, and then they will reported on August 12.
re-evaluate it,” one of the sources said. Reuters Citing Singapore court documents, Reuters
calculated that the grace period would save Ven- said sanctions targeting PDVSA had left the
ezuela from repaying $3bn this year. vessels without insurance, leading to millions of
While China has lent more than $50bn to dollars in losses for CV Shipping.
Venezuela since 2006, the South American PetroChina declared the venture as bank-
country’s debt had dropped below $20bn in rupt and took control of three very-large crude
recent years. However, state-owned PDVSA has carriers (VLCCs) – each of which is capable
stopped publishing the pending balance. of transporting up to 2mn barrels of oil – in
“This [agreement] helps, but it does not alle- January-February.
viate the cash flow problem,” another source While PDVSA controls a fourth VLCC, Reu-
said. ters said a US glass manufacturer had requested
Caracas has been struggling to meet its loan a Singapore court seize the tanker to cover a
obligations in the wake of an 18-month cam- $500mn arbitral award after Venezuela expro-
paign by the US government to force Venezuelan priated two of its factories in 2010. ™

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 32 13•August•2020