By Fernando Gimeno | Yasuní (Ecuador) (EFE).- Ecuador faces a crucial moment for the future of its oil, one of the great pillars of its economy, which is at stake with the unprecedented national referendum to prohibit the exploitation of Block 43-ITT, a deposit located under the Amazon jungle of the Yasuní National Park, one of the world epicenters of biodiversity.
Of the around 480,000 barrels of oil that Ecuador produces daily, some 55,000 (11%) come from Block 43-ITT (Ishpingo, Tambococha, Tiputini), which makes it the fourth most productive field in Ecuador and with projections to eventually be the first.
This gives a net benefit to the State of 1,200 million dollars a year, according to the state oil company Petroecuador, which operates the ITT and which estimates reserves and resources of 282 million barrels in the subsoil, whose net benefit would be, according to the same company, of 13,800 million dollars in the next 20 years.
The popular consultation will be held on August 20, coinciding with the extraordinary general elections, after a ten-year legal battle waged by the environmentalist collective Yasunidos to carry out the vote, after gathering more than 757,000 signatures.
The question would set a historical precedent, although it concerns only Block 43-ITT and not Blocks 16 and 31, which are also within Yasuní, but are not the subject of this consultation.
For Yasunidos, the exploitation of the ITT cannot continue due to the risk of disturbing this privileged ecosystem, made up of more than 2,000 species of trees, 204 mammals, 610 birds, 121 reptiles, 150 amphibians and more than 250 fish.
Oil and nature compatible, says company
“It is the best managed field from an environmental point of view,” Petroecuador general manager Ramón Correa told EFE during a tour of the facilities, where they have invested more than 1.8 billion dollars in their goal of making the environment compatible and Petroleum.
“You cannot operate without perfect harmony with the environment and the communities,” he reiterates before emphasizing that, unlike other fields, here there are no gas “lighters” (burners), which are used to generate electricity.
With the premise of occupying as little space as possible, the facilities and open paths in the jungle occupy a total of 80 hectares, less than 0.01% of the surface of the National Park.
This was achieved with cluster drilling, where the wells start from the same place in different directions, without the need to cover a large area, as explained by the ITT Asset Manager, Walter Paredes, from the Tambococha B platform.
“Here we have 21 wells in 3.2 hectares”, emphasizes the engineer, something that with previous technology would have required 31.5 hectares. In this way, 225 wells work on eleven platforms.
Added to this are environmental safeguards, such as narrow paths that avoid important trees and that have steps to facilitate the movement of animals from one place to another.
No spills to nature
Since ITT production began, Petroecuador has acknowledged twenty-six incidents, very small leaks that never reached the natural environment.
“I have never seen ‘watering holes’ (spills) here,” Panenky Ohe Huabe, president of the Kawymeno indigenous community, the only Waorani ethnic group out of the seven that inhabit the ITT and who wants exploitation to continue, tells EFE. see in it a source of employment and basic services.
His position differs from the leaders of the Waorani nationality, who call for unity to stop the extraction of crude oil.
The promoters of the consultation also fear effects on the Tagaeri and Taromenane, two indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation whose intangible zone borders the ITT, but from Petroecuador -which has a protocol in case of encountering them- they point out that up to now they have not There have been no sightings or contacts of these groups, which live deep in the jungle.
A very expensive decision
If the “Yes” vote wins, Petroecuador must leave within a year, something that Paredes sees as “practically impossible”. “It will take between three and five years,” says the engineer, since the regulations require putting three cement plugs in each well, removing everything and reforesting.
The damage to the State calculated by the company will be 16,470 million dollars, between the profitability of the oil that remains to be extracted, the dismantling of the fields and various compensations, which Yasunidos believes can be compensated if it increases by 1.5%. the income tax of the richest.
Concern grows among experts when they warn that there is no other field ready to replace ITT production, while they point out that the Heavy Crude Oil Pipeline (OCP) would be left without its main supplier and at risk of not reaching the minimum amount to function daily.
“We know that the energy transition has to take place, but we cannot do it in one day and close a field in the midst of the country’s situation, because State resources also come from here to invest in the transition,” concludes Correa.