28 Oct 2004

Plaintiffs Acknowledge PetroEcuador's Responsibility at Ninth Judicial Site Inspection

NUEVA LOJA, Ecuador, October 28, 2004 - The Superior Court of Nueva Loja yesterday conducted its ninth judicial site inspection that took place at the active PetroEcuador Shushufindi-Sur (SSF-Sur) production station. During the inspection, counsel for plaintiffs acknowledged, for the first time in the course of the lawsuit against ChevronTexaco, that the existence of open pits currently being operated by PetroEcuador are the responsibility of the state-owned company.

Following are the highlights:

  • The occasion served to demonstrate that Texaco Petroleum Company (Texpet) designed and provided equipment for a water re-injection system for the station, and also remediated three areas of soil. By so doing, Texaco fully complied with the remediation plan agreed upon by the government of Ecuador.
  • Adolfo Callejas, counsel for ChevronTexaco, began the inspection by showing the judge the water re-injection system that was designed by Texpet. Callejas pointed out that some of the petroleum-filled pits at the site are part of the gas collection system employed by state-owned PetroIndustrial, and did not exist for the treatment of produced water when Texpet operated the consortium. The plaintiffs acknowledged this fact. Under PetroEcuador's current operation, these pits are filled with fresh crude oil that can spill into the surrounding area and to the nearby River Victoria.
  • After plaintiffs spent hours trying to prove that a narrow dirt channel adjacent to PetroEcuador's open pits was created by Texpet to handle the approximately 30,000 barrels of produced water issued daily from the site, counsel for ChevronTexaco effectively demonstrated that this channel was most definitely built by PetroEcuador to handle run-off from its produced water pits.
  • In yet another indication of flaws within PetroEcuador's operations that may have contributed to the environmental condition of the area, Callejas presented to the Court records that PetroEcuador submitted to the Amazonian District Internal Protection Agency detailing recent oil spills impacting the area surrounding the SSF-Sur station:
Date Cause Impact
02/10/2000 Crude petroleum spill due to negligence Contamination of 400 square meters in the installation area of the station surrounding test separator No. 2 and drainage area
04/12/2000 Rupture of the flow lines due to corrosion Contamination of the spring and the swamp on PetroEcuador property
05/04/2000 Corrosion of the pipeline ten meters from the station Contamination of 40 square meters of PetroProduccion active oilfields
08/14/2001 Attempt to rob flow line pipes from wellsite Shushufindi-23 Oil spill

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