19 Jun 2006
Plaintiffs' Allegations at Sacha 51 are Not Supported by Scientific Data which Prove there is No Threat from Texpet's Former Operations
QUITO, Ecuador, June 19, 2006 - Chevron has formally notified the Superior Court in Nueva Loja that plaintiffs' expert report for Sacha 51, contains no credible scientific evidence to justify the accusations contained in the report. In its rebuttal, filed with the court on August 23, 2005, Chevron states that the report lacks scientific objectivity, contains serious errors and should be considered a biased interpretation of the data.
Following is a summary of the more significant technical errors contained in Plaintiffs' Expert's report:
- Analytical results contained in the plaintiff's expert report do not support the claims of widespread contamination. Four pit sites were evaluated as part of the inspection. Despite the fact that plaintiff's expert took a number of samples from several sites, the expert report presented analytical results for samples collected inside only one of the four pits. Yet, these results disprove the report's claims, since they were below even cleanup criteria used by the plaintiff's expert.
- The only sample data, included in the report, that showed elevated levels of Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) were found in an area at the Sacha 51 well site that was not part of Texpet remediation program since testing at the time of the remediation in the 1990s showed low levels of TPH (443 mg/kg). Since Petroecuador assumed operations of the site in 1990, this area has been impacted by several oil spills, including a 2002 release of 1,120 bbls of oil. Plaintiffs' report does not mention these facts.
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