Outdated infrastructure and oil spills: the cases of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador

All three legacy-oil pipelines in the Andean Amazon system are old. The Oleoducto Transandino Colombiano (OTC) has been operating for 53 years, followed by the Sistema de Oleoducto Transecuatoriano (SOTE) at 50 years and the Oleoducto Norperuano (ONP) at 45 years. Pipeline technology has changed dramatically since their construction, with improvements in steel alloys, welding technology and surface coverings. These systems’ greatest flaw, however, was the decision to build them above ground, a practice that had been abandoned by the industry in its US-based systems long before these pipelines were constructed. Superficial systems are prone to failure because they either lie directly on the soil surface, which increases the rate of oxidation, or are supported by struts and beams, which make them susceptible to mechanical failure. Most importantly, above-ground systems are more likely to be physically compromised by human actions, either accidental or deliberate.

The exposure of these key infrastructure assets to sabotage is most evident in Colombia. Between 1986 and 2015, petroleum infrastructure was attacked more than 1,000 times in Putumayo, triggering at least 160 oil spills. Marxist militias justified their action by claiming they were resisting exploitation by foreign oil companies. However, Indigenous communities suffered most of the impacts of their actions (see Chapter 6). Attacks decreased after the initiation of the peace process (2016–2018) but returned to the status quo ante as armed militias once again asserted their power. Apparently, attacks are a ploy to sow chaos and disrupt the formal economy but, since the pollution of aquatic habitats disrupts traditional livelihoods, they also increase the militia’s ability to recruit young people from Indigenous communities.

Ecuador has suffered an even larger number of pipeline failures, with more than 1,000 incidents between 2000 and 2021. The majority were caused by vehicles crashing into feeder pipelines that parallel the region’s secondary road network. The environmental impact of these small-scale leaks has not attracted the same media attention as the large-scale failures of the two trunk pipelines, but their cumulative damage is significant and long-lasting. An estimated 130,000 barrels of crude oil have been released onto landscapes inhabited by tens of thousands of rural families. More serious are the ruptures to the SOTE trunk pipeline, with 65 incidents between 1972 and 2019 spilling ~730,000 barrels. Most incidents are caused by a landslide or riverbank erosion, but it has twice been severed by an earthquake.

The most problematic sector is a stretch in the foothills of the Andes where high rainfall and flash floods have caused several large-scale accidents. Nonetheless, the company has improved its performance, and the volume of oil released into the environment is considerably lower than in the early years of its operations.

Petroecuador began a programme to bury the lowland components of the SOTE system in 2013, an investment that dramatically reduced incidents until 2020 when an ‘act of God’ severed not only the SOTE but also the OTC and a third pipeline (Poliducto Quito Sushufundi), causing a massive oil slick on the Río Coca that impacted downstream habitats and communities all the way to Peru. As of 2022, Petroecuador and the OCP consortium redesigned their pipeline systems to avoid this type of failure at an estimated cost of ~US$200 million. Meanwhile, they will spend an undisclosed amount of money on remediating the impacts of approximately ~15,800 barrels of leaked oil.

The Peruvian pipeline system suffers from a combination of accidents and sabotage. Information on early operations in Peru is not publicly available, but there were 497 oil spills between 2000 and 2019.

Numerically, most of the leaks have occurred in the feeder pipelines servicing the two major production fields (Lotes 8 and 192), but three sections of the ONP have suffered from 27 incidents and are the source of the most oil released into the environment. Effective management has deteriorated significantly since 2016, when thirteen events released ~6,000 barrels of oil into forest and aquatic habitats. The environmental agency (Organismo de Evaluación y Fiscalización Ambiental – OEFA) conducted an inspection of the accident sites and concluded that most of the failures had been caused by a combination of internal and external corrosion. The agency cited and fined a state-owned company for inadequate maintenance and ordered a halt to pipeline operations until the company developed a plausible strategy for repairing and operating the pipeline. A subsequent review by the Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Energía y Minería (OSINERGMIN), a semi-autonomous agency affiliated with the energy ministry, challenged those conclusions and determined that ten of these incidents were the result of deliberate attempts at sabotage by third parties.

Indigenous communities are now cognizant of the damages they have suffered after five decades of neglect and lax operational controls, as well as the repeated failure of the government to attend to their demands. Civil disobedience, a time-honored ploy in Andean communities, is now a routine tactic in the oil fields of the Peruvian Amazon. The most famous incident was the Baguazo, a deadly showdown in 2009 between President Alain Garcia and Indigenous groups opposed to policies that would have expanded oil production in the Maranõn sub-basin (see Chapter 11). The Indigenous communities have since used sit-ins and ritualised hostage-taking to protest the ongoing failure of the government to attend to their demands, many of which have little or nothing to do with the actual operations of the pipeline. Protests increased in frequency in 2018 when villagers on the Río Morona impeded clean-up operations and occupied a pumping station. This was followed in 2019 by a sit-in at Pump Station #5, a key logistical center near Saramiriza, which was occupied again for several weeks in 2021.

Throughout this period, deliberate acts of sabotage have released thousands of barrels of oil into the rivers and streams. Social unrest has caused the ONP to cease operations for weeks, sometimes even months at a time, exacerbating the already challenging operational environment in the Selva Norte production area. Plans to extend the northern spur to transport oil from the region’s most promising oil field (Lote 67) are, apparently, in question: two companies, Frontera Energy (Lote 192) and GeoPark (Lote 64), have left the country. PetroTal, the operator of the only field producing oil (Lote 95), has started exporting crude oil via barge and the Amazon Waterway (see Chapter 2).

The pipelines that service both Camisea and the Urucú are underground systems that have enjoyed, more or less, problem-free operations. There are no reports of any incidents on the Urucú–Manaus pipeline since its completion in 2009, nor of the associated gas-liquids pipeline between Urucú and Coari that initiated operations in 2000. The gas-liquids pipeline between Camisea and the Pacific coast system experienced five ruptures in its first three years of operations (2004–2007), which motivated the operator to modify the design of the system. The gas pipeline has yet to experience a failure.

Mitigation and remediation of oil spills

Environmental management protocols by oil companies focus on the avoidance and mitigation of oil spills. If a spill occurs, the first priority is to recover as much oil as possible. After that, the impacts must be remediated.

Spills on land are easily contained, thus facilitating recovery. Polluted soil can be scooped up and taken to treatment facilities, known as ‘land farms’, where specially selected bacteria break down the long-chain organic molecules and aromatic compounds that constitute crude oil. If left untreated, natural processes will eventually degrade and decompose the oil, although it will take many decades and, in the interim, poison the local environment.

Spills into water are even more problematic. Oil slicks rapidly expand across the entire surface area of the water body while streams and rivers will amplify its impact by transporting it downstream. Oil slicks from spills on the Coca River in Ecuador in 2013 and 2020 reached Peru more than 250 kilometers downstream. Backwater habitats, such as seasonal marshes and palm swamps, are particularly vulnerable because they are characterized by standing water where oil is trapped. As water levels fall during the dry season, the oil slick will permeate soil surfaces and poison the benthic habitats that are the foundation of aquatic food webs. Microbial degradation occurs more slowly in these oxygen-starved environments because oil-eating bacteria largely work via aerobic metabolic processes. Oil is especially toxic to frogs because of their fragile and highly permeable skin; fish and waterfowl will also die when exposed to oil.

The impact from oil spills in the Amazon is immediately felt by the human communities. Indigenous and ribereña/ribeirinha communities are clustered along rivers and highly dependent on fishing for their livelihoods. Not surprisingly, they are the most vocal critics of the oil industry in Colombia, Peru and Ecuador. They protest about the increasing occurrence of oil spills, as well as the failure of institutions to remediate past spills and fairly compensate them for damages they suffer over the short and long term.

In Colombia, the struggle is led by representatives of the Siona, an Indigenous group settled along the banks of the Río Putumayo whose militancy has been assisted by members of their ethnic group in Ecuador. Ecuador’s indigenous groups, particularly Waorani, Cofan, Siona and Kichwa, have succeeded in articulating their demands through civil protest. However, they have elevated their grievances into the judicial sphere, winning important decisions in both domestic and international courts. The situation is more chaotic in Peru due to a national proclivity for civil disobedience, where protestors associated with the Achuar, Awajún and Huambisa have essentially shut down the ONP.

Governments are highly dependent on oil revenues and are not eager to forgo revenues in favor of remediating environmental problems which impact a very small fraction of the national population. It is difficult to hold state-owned companies responsible due to the political protection inherent in their corporate governance systems. Attempts to hold multinationals accountable have likewise not prospered, in part, because legal systems have been compromised by corrupt acts that provide companies with an opportunity to prolong and deflect legal actions (see Text Box 5.1).

Secondary impacts

The secondary and indirect impacts caused by the development and exploitation of hydrocarbons has provoked even more concern. The experience of Ecuador in the 1970s and 80s, where large-scale deforestation accompanied the development of the oil fields in Sucumbíos province, is an example of the power of synergies from multiple policies. In this case, the government decided to link the development of the oil fields with investments in roads, agricultural development, poverty reduction, land reform and national security. More than forty per cent of Ecuador’s total Amazonian deforestation has occurred as a consequence of that decision. A similar process happened in Colombia with the development of oil fields just across the border in the Department of Putumayo.

These policies were not repeated, however, in Northern Peru where oil fields were developed using techniques not unlike an offshore oil platform. Equipment was moved via rivers while the pipeline was built, without creating a permanent trunk highway. Local roads were built to link oil-well platforms, and a temporary access road was established to service the construction of the pipeline, but it was not improved with embankments or bridges. Consequently, it did not create an immigration corridor between the populated areas of the Peruvian coast and the remote landscapes of the oil fields.

The offshore (or enclave) approach was also used in the development of the Camisea gas field in the lowland provinces of Cusco Department when it was connected to overseas and domestic markets by a gas pipeline in 2004. Similarly, the Brazilians chose to develop the Urucú gas field between 2006 and 2009 with a minimum of road building and adopted a policy to discourage settlements. There is no evidence or reports of settlement or unauthorized forest clearing linked to either of those projects.

“A Perfect Storm in the Amazon” is a book by Timothy Killeen and contains the author’s viewpoints and analysis. The second edition was published by The White Horse in 2021, under the terms of a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0 license).

To read earlier chapters of the book, find Chapter One here, Chapter Two here, Chapter Three here and Chapter Four here.