In Orito, Putumayo a group of around 100 community leaders, activists and organizers met with Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) to discuss the alleged contamination of local rivers and streams, but considered the NOC’s explanations insufficient.
The damage and aftermath of guerrilla attacks on this sensitive set of pipelines keeps on snowballing, with reports estimating that the lost barrels have long surpassed a million and that a good portion of the Caño Limon field is at a halt.
The national government says that it will visit the U´WA indigenous group that is blocking the access of repair crews to the Caño Limon-Coveñas pipeline, which has been inoperable following a guerrilla attack on March 24th.
In order to offer current and potential suppliers an updated panorama into different aspects of the oil industry Ecopetrol has agreed with The University of Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano to create a “Supplier’s University”, and will subsidize the cost during the first stage of the project.
The USO did not let the three year signing of the free trade agreement between the United States and Colombia pass without pointing out what the union considers a concerted effort from the central government to suppress union rights, one of the contentious points of the agreement in the US congress.
Casanare has become a haven for using community distraught for personal gain, says an opinion column in the local paper. There might be justification in some of the complaints, but the demands and complaints have turned “into a true shopping list” says the author, who expresses a point of view rarely found in the local paper.
The mayor of Meta’s capital Villavicencio Juan Guillermo Zuluaga has called for a green tax for oil companies to compensate financially for the environmental toll on the producing and surrounding region.
The Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP) has been coordinating an effort to get expert opinion on the causes of the drought affecting Paz de Ariporo, and that its roots are not firmly in the oil industry. But a persistent community movement continues to finger oil.
The final stretch of the Colombia’s great oil infrastructure: The Bicentennial Pipeline passes through Caño Limon, which is fraught with problems. Guerrillas attack it, while an indigenous community will not let crews in to repair it. The end result is missed shipments, 35,000bd of lost production worth millions a day and jobs for the local community. Who will right this situation?
A meeting in Yopal that included all the big institutions from the national government for a roads project in Casanare yielded an offer of support from the national government, but the local authorities say it pales in comparison to the costs of keeping heavy trucks on the road.
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