Quito, June 1 (EFECOM).- The Ecuadorian state oil company, Petroecuador, announced this Saturday that the process to eliminate gas flares associated with oil exploitation in the Amazon, as well as improve technology in the industry to minimize environmental pollution , it will take until the year 2030.
With this announcement, Petroecuador said that it has committed itself to complying with the ruling of a court of justice that in 2021 ruled in favor of nine women from the Amazon, then minors, who had denounced the effects of pollution from burning free air from the gas associated with crude oil exploitation.
“Until 2030 we will comply with the sentence by redesigning facilities and including new technology in the company’s fields in Sucumbíos and Orellana,” the two provinces in which the bulk of the national oil industry is based, Petroecuador said in a statement.
A court in Sucumbíos ordered in January 2021 that more than 400 torches or gas burners be eliminated, which emit large amounts of carbon dioxide and other toxic waste into the environment.
Last May, Petroecuador had ensured the elimination of 145 lighters in its operations.
“These activities have been carried out since 2022 in the provinces of Sucumbíos and Orellana, in accordance with the plan established by the public company within phases 1 and 2 to comply with the ruling of the Provincial Court of Sucumbíos,” added the source.
The oil company, in its statement this Saturday, indicated that on its web portal it has published the “minutes on the dismantling of 145” flares from its crude oil production fields.
The dismantled lighters are located at the facilities of Oso Yuralpa, Palo Azul, Auca, Sacha, Pucuna, Guanta, Libertador and Shushufindi, Lago Agrio, Bermejo, Indillana, Armadillo, Apaika and Nenke, among others, Petroecuador stated.
He commented that the estimated time to turn off and dismantle “each traditional lighter ranges from 12 to 36 months, depending on the complexity, infrastructure and geographical location.”
Furthermore, he explained that the progressive elimination of the 145 flares corresponded to a first phase to capture and concentrate the gas associated with the exploitation of crude oil in process stations, to use it in the electricity generation of the same fields.
Likewise, he stated that part of the gas is sent to an Industrial Complex in the Shushufindi area to be industrialized and obtain liquefied petroleum gas and gasoline.
In January 2021, when the court ruling was issued, more than 447 lighters were burning gas 24 hours a day, which represents constant pollution of the air, land and rivers, as Pablo Fajardo, lawyer for the complaining girls, reported at the time.
Leonela Moncayo, Rosa Valladolid, Skarlett Naranjo, Jamileth Jurado, Denisse Nuñez, Dannya Bravo, Mishell Mora, Jeyner Tejena and Kerly Herrera are the women who demanded the elimination of gas flares in the Amazon.
Last March, Moncayo led a protest march by indigenous people and other social groups to demand that the sentence be carried out and that the more than 400 polluting burners in the Amazon rainforest be turned off.
She regretted that the lighters had not been eliminated, despite the fact that the court ordered it more than thirty months ago, when the justice system set a compliance deadline of 18 months.
Moncayo revealed in March that when the lawsuit was filed with Justice in the Ecuadorian Amazon region, 447 lighters had been counted, but he said that number had risen to 486.
Oil, which Ecuador extracts mainly in the Amazon region, is one of the country’s main sources of currency income and the basis for financing state budgets.
Ecuador currently produces about 480,000 barrels of crude oil per day, 80 percent of which belongs to the state-owned Petroecuador and the rest is distributed among several private companies operating in the country. EFECOM
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