19 Jun 2006

Plaintiffs' Allegations at Shushufindi 48 are Not Supported by Scientific Data which Prove the Texpet Remediation was Successful

QUITO, Ecuador, June 19, 2006 - Chevron has formally notified the Superior Court in Nueva Loja that plaintiffs' expert report for the Shushufindi 48 (SSF-48) well site, contains no credible scientific evidence to validate the accusations contained in the report. In its rebuttal, filed with the court on July 12, 2005, Chevron states that 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:

  • Without scientific evidence, the report alleges that the remediation performed by Texpet in 1995 was not adequate. These allegations ignore analytical data and photographic evidence that clearly demonstrate that Texpet conducted a proper remediation program in accordance with the scope of work agreed to by Petroecuador and the Government of Ecuador.
  • The remediation costs that the plaintiffs' expert proposed is 10 times higher than typical remediation costs in Ecuador and other parts of the world. Other plaintiffs' experts have already accepted their error and agreed that their proposed costs are inflated.
  • Several inconsistencies in the report demonstrate either a lack of scientific expertise or a deliberate intention to mislead. Although no samples were taken from Pit 2, analytical results from another pit were presented as if they were taken from Pit 2. Despite the fact that analytical results from Pit 5 were below the expert's own cleanup criteria, the report claims that the area should be remediated.

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