Page 12 - LatAmOil Week 05 2022

LatAmOil PERU LatAmOil

Peru bars Repsol from unloading crude

after oil spill at La Pampilla mooring

PERU’S Environment Minister Ruben Ramirez government, he said. “Repsol has not demon-
said on January 31 that Repsol (Spain) would strated clear actions regarding clean-up and
not be permitted to take delivery of feedstock remediation,” he commented, according to an
for its La Pampilla refinery until it could provide Argus Media report.
adequate technical guarantees with respect to its The spill occurred as the Mare Doricum,
ability to handle oil spills. an Italian-flagged Suezmax tanker, unloaded
Ramirez declared that the Spanish company a 1mn-barrel cargo of crude at La Pampilla for
was already performing inadequately, as evi- delivery to Repsol’s refinery. Peru’s Environment
denced by the spill that occurred at one of the Ministry has reported that the incident resulted
four moorings it operates at La Pampilla, which 11,900 barrels of oil to leak into the ocean, sub-
is not far from Peru’s capital city Lima, on Janu- sequently causing 44 km of coastline to be con-
ary 15. “Repsol has not provided assurances that taminated. Repsol initially estimated the volume
it could deal with another spill at the other three of the spill at less than 1 barrel but has now put
moorings it operates [at La Pampilla],” Argus the figure at 10,396 barrels.
Media quoted him as saying. The Spanish company gained control of the
Under these circumstances, he said, Peruvian La Pampilla refinery in 1996 in a privatisation
authorities cannot allow the Spanish company sale. ™
to unload or upload crude for the refinery.
This decision effectively suspends opera-
tions at the 117,000 barrel per day La Pampilla
refinery. As such, it raises concerns about petro-
leum product supplies in Peru. The country’s
only other major domestic source of fuel is the
65,000 bpd La Talara plant, which is owned
by the national oil company (NOC) Petrop-
eru, but it has been offline for about two years
while undergoing modernisation. Nevertheless,
Petroperu said at the weekend that it was capable
of covering local demand.
Meanwhile, Ramirez also said on January
31 that he disputed Repsol’s claims that it had
already recovered 35% of the crude spilled
on January 15 as a result of using satellite and
artificial intelligence techniques. The firm
has not done enough to clarify its plans to the Repsol has been unable to load feedstock for its Peruvian refinery (Photo: Repsol)

ECUADOR
GeoPark finds oil and gas in Jandaya-1 well

GEOPARK (Canada) revealed earlier this week primary target, the Hollin formation, the com-
that it had made its first discovery at Perico, a pany said. It stated that its Canadian partner
block within the Oriente basin in Ecuador. Frontera Energy, the operator of the project, had
In a statement dated January 24, GeoPark carried out production tests in the lower part of
said it had found both crude oil and natural the Hollin formation showing that the well had
gas in Jandaya-1, an exploration well drilled to yielded an average of 890 barrels of oil equiva-
a depth of 10,975 feet (3,345 metres) at Perico. lent per day (boepd) over a period of five days.
It reported that the well had encountered 70-80 Total production included 750 barrels per day
feet (21.3-24.4 metres) of potential hydrocar- (bpd) of 28 degrees API crude oil and 800,000
bon-bearing reservoirs within three formations. cubic feet (22,660 cubic metres) per day of gas,
One of these formations was the well’s with an 8% water cut, it noted.

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