Occidental Petroleum settles with Peru's Achuar tribe

American oil company Occidental Petroleum and the Achuar indigenous group in Peru settled a claim that had been winding its way through the U.S. court system since 2007. The Achuar people blamed Occidental for supposedly contaminating the group’s lands in the Peruvian Amazon over the course of three decades. The lawsuit argued that Occidental “knowingly utilized out-of-date methods for separating crude oil that contravened United States and Peruvian law, resulting in the discharge of millions of gallons of toxic oil byproducts into the area’s waterways.”

Though the precise amount of the settlement was not disclosed due to a confidentiality clause, the agreement forces the oil company to fund public health development projects for five communities in the Loreto region. Occidental Petroleum, however, has admitted no wrongdoing.

The settlement was actually agreed to in 2013, but was only announced last week by Occidental Petroleum. According to representatives of both parties in the lawsuit, all sides are satisfied with the settlement. Occidental ran the 1-AB oil block in Peru from 1971 until 2000, when it sold the operations to Argentine oil company Pluspetrol, which has had similar clashes with the local communities.

In advance of the rumored signing of an historic agreement between the indigenous communities in the areas surrounding the 1-AB block and the Peruvian government, Peruvian business journal El Comercio published an article asking what the indigenous communities of this region want from the government. According to Julio Rojas, the high commissioner in the National Office of Dialogue and Sustainability, the indigenous people want: the construction of water treatment plants, investments in public health, extensive environmental studies of the areas and the local people, and more than $100 million to fund environmental remediation projects.