19 Jun 2006

Chevron Finds that Plaintiffs' Report on Sacha 18 Lacks Merit, Ignores Scientific Evidence and Fails to Recognize Petroecuador Responsibility

QUITO, Ecuador, June 19, 2006 -Chevron has formally notified the Superior Court in Nueva Loja that plaintiffs' expert' report for the Sacha-18 well site contains no credible scientific evidence to support the contention that there are health risks at the site -- in fact, no harmful levels of petroleum related chemicals were found at the site and data prove that past Texpet operations pose no threat to human health.

Following is a summary of the more significant technical errors contained in Plaintiffs' Experts' report:

  • Despite photographic and analytical evidence to the contrary, the plaintiffs' expert states that Pit 1 at Sacha 18 is the responsibility of Texpet not Petroecuador. Yet, according to the agreement between the Government of Ecuador, Petroecuador, and Texpet, established in the Remedial Action Plan (RAP), this area was the responsibility of Petroecuador because the pit was closed prior to the implementation of the RAP.
  • To interpret the analytical results, plaintiffs' expert used evaluation criteria that did not even exist during the mid 1990's when the remediation was performed at the site, intentionally ignoring both the evaluation criteria included in the RAP, (which were approved by the Ecuadorian government and Petroecuador before the remediation was performed), and Ecuadorian and international criteria in place at the time.

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