Tuesday, February 23, 2016

Petro-Perú slapped on the wrist for Amazon oil spills

The Peruvian mining and energy regulatory agency Osinergmin fined Peruvian state-owned oil company Petro-Perú $3.6 million for two oil spills in the Amazon jungle. Peru reports explained that the fine was specifically for Petro-Perú’s failure to install brackets on the specified sections of the Northern Peruvian Pipeline as well as not completing a risk-management study.

Osignergmin cautioned that further fines could be levied against Petro-Perú depending on the results of investigations into the pipeline oil spills. At the very least, Petro-Perú president Germán Velasquez seemed appropriately remorseful, saing, “What happened is horrible … but we are acting to remedy it. Petroperu will not stop until there is not a single drop of oil left. And in each of these events, we are going in with medical equipment.

El Comercio also reported that, according to Velásquez, several Petro-Perú officials have already been fired as a result of the oil spills. Furthermore, the oil company has already initiated a top-to-bottom review of the Northern Peruvian Pipeline to ensure that these spills do not recur.

In mining-related news, La República reported that Peruvian preseidential candidate Alan García that, if elected president, he would invalidate the decrees that the Humala Administration has issued to formalized small and artisanal miners. He argued that these norms “had demonized and persecuted small and artisanal miners because they had turned them into money launderers.” García announced that he would roll back the law to the regulations that had existed during his presidential administration.

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