Historical News Releases & Statements
20 Aug 2007
Chevron Responds to Misrepresentations by Plaintiffs' Attorneys Regarding Richard Cabrera's Inspection of the Charapa-01 Site
August 20, 2007
La Hora
To the Editor:
Your August 15 article Controversy in the Texaco Ruling printed some gross factual distortions made by plaintiffs' attorneys in the suit against Chevron that should be corrected.
"The plaintiffs' attorneys continue to distort the truth. Chevron has never stated that Texpet did not drill the Charapa-01 well. What Chevron stated was that although Charapa-1 was drilled in 1967 as part of the original concession, Texpet never put the site into production. Instead, as a result of Supreme Decree 925 dated August 16, 1973, the area in which the Charapa-1 site is located was stricken from the original concession area and relinquished back to the Government of Ecuador. Plaintiffs' suggestion that the fact that Texpet drilled an exploratory well at Charapa-01 in 1967 makes it responsible for the condition at a site from which it never produced any oil, and which Petroecuador solely operated for almost 30 years is just ludicrous.
The only reasonable conclusion one can draw is that the inspection at this site by expert Cabrera constitutes additional evidence of Mr. Cabrera's bias against Chevron and his inclination to help the plaintiffs in this case. Worse still, it is a clear indication of the strong desire in some quarters to conceal Petroecuador's responsibility for the environmental condition of the Oriente today.
Sincerely,
Jaime Varela Walker
Chevron Representative
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