Global energy crunch stirs hope of oil reboot in Peru's Amazon

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Oil · 03 April, 2022

Global energy crunch stirs hope of oil reboot in Peru's Amazon

NUEVO ANDOAS, Peru (Reuters) - Peru's government wants to ramp up oil production in some of its dormant Amazonian fields as global crude prices soar on supply fears linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

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Global crude crunch stirs hopes of oil reboot in Peru's Amazon


By Marcelo Rochabrun


NUEVO ANDOAS, Peru (Reuters) - Peru's government wants to ramp up oil production in some of its dormant Amazonian fields as global crude prices soar on supply fears linked to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.


Among the areas prime for a reboot is Block 192, the Andean country's largest - and leakiest - field. Located deep in the Amazon jungle in northern Peru, the block for decades was one of the country's leading oil producers.


It's also the source of extensive ecological damage to the surrounding forest, a big reason pumping ceased two years ago. Oil from hundreds of previous spills still permeates the tropical topsoil, coats native plants and leaks into streams that flow to the mighty Amazon River.


"Here we all live poisoned," said Pilar Rengifo, a resident of Nuevo Andoas, a hamlet of about 500 residents on the edge of Block 192. In 2016, state-backed testing of 1,138 people in more than three-dozen communities in this oil patch, including Nuevo Andoas, showed that about half had high levels of lead, arsenic and mercury in their bloodstreams, which the government said was likely caused by oil exposure.


Still, Rengifo and other villagers told Reuters they support oil drilling, a source of steady work, and would favor an even stronger push in Lima to bring it back despite the risks.


Surging energy prices have changed the calculus for Peru and countries across Latin America and beyond looking to reduce dependence on foreign oil. Western sanctions on Russia, a major crude exporter, have taken millions of barrels per day out of an already-tight global market. That's squeezing drivers at the pump, hurting farmers and merchants, and turbo-charging inflation.


Peru imports 80% of its petroleum, gasoline and diesel, a figure President Pedro Castillo is determined to lower. His administration has steered troubled state-owned oil company Petroperu to restart oil production for the first time in decades, though it remains under 1,000 barrels a day. At its peak in 1980, Petroperu's output was about 200,000 barrels a day, a figure that plummeted amid privatizations that saw the company halt production to focus on refining and distribution.


by. Reuters / Thu, 31 March 2022, 8:06 pm