The Canadian oil company Altamesa Energy was chosen by the Peruvian state oil company Petroperú as its partner in the exploitation of Block 192, the largest oil field in the country, it was reported on Wednesday (06.23.2021).
Crude production in Block 192, located in Loreto, the largest region of the Peruvian Amazon, was paralyzed in February, when the temporary exploitation contract of the Canadian company Frontera expired.
Exploitation will resume when a prior consultation process is completed with the native communities, who must approve the new contract. The process, in charge of the Ministry of Energy and Mines and the state company Peru-petro, has been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Altamesa will be the majority partner of Petroperú, which will return to the business of crude oil production by mandate of a law of the Peruvian Congress passed at the end of 2015.
Up to 90 operating wells
Block 192 covers an area of more than 512,000 hectares that includes three rivers (Pastaza, Corrientes and Tigre) in whose basins numerous indigenous communities settle. The average basic production is about 10,500 barrels per day and it has 250 drilled wells, of which around 90 are considered active.
It is estimated that it has 127 million barrels of medium, light and heavy crude as reserves, raw material that will be used to start up the modernization of the Talara Refinery, whose work is already in its final phase.
Block 192 is also the site in the Peruvian Amazon with the most reported contamination incidents in the last twenty years, according to an investigation published last year by the National Human Rights Coordinator (CNDDHH).
Almost 1,200 points have been detected impacted by the contamination produced by the oil activity that are pending decontamination and whose surface area is equivalent to some 36.5 hectares, which would require some 24,000 trucks to extract the affected parts.
gs (efe, La República, Information Day)