As Canadian companies express interest in fracking in Colombia, activists launch “pilot water” campaign

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On July 20, RCN Radio reported: “Several environmental activists came to the congressional building to hand out bottles of ‘pilot water’—as a symbol of what the future of the liquid would be after fracking projects in the country.”

Last month, the Colombian National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) and ExxonMobil signed a contract that formally authorizes a fracking pilot project to proceed on VMM-37 (a plot of land co-owned with Toronto-based Sintana Energy Ltd.) near the community of Puerto Wilches. In November 2020, the ANH signed the first pilot project contract with Ecopetrol for its Kalé project also near Puerto Wilches.

The RCN article adds: “Carlos Andrés Santiago, an environmental activist and member of the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking, distributed several bottles of ‘pilot water’ to members of Congress.”

Santiago said: “We come to tell those who make the decisions in Congress that we invite them to take this water. This is a campaign of the Alliance for a Colombia Free of Fracking. This bottle of water is delicious, it has many benefits, such as radioactive pollutants, destruction of biodiversity, of little economic value and violence in the territories.”

Canadian companies on fracking

Calgary-based Canacol Energy Ltd. and Parex Resources Inc. along with Toronto-based Sintana Energy Ltd. appear to be interested in fracking in Colombia.

In March 2019, Colombia’s Mines and Energy Minister Maria Fernanda Suarez stated that Parex was among the companies “seeking to operate” a fracking block. Parex holds the VMM-9 block in the Magdalena Medio region.

This past April, Sintana welcomed the news of ExxonMobil being granted a pilot project contract for VMM-37 (an area of land co-owned with Sintana) and stated that the fracking pilot projects should provide an effective path forward for future operations.

And later that month, Canacol announced that there was “significant potential” for fracking in its VMM-2 and VMM-3 blocks in the Magdalena Medio region.

Last month, the CEO of Canacol also commented: “The objectives of these [fracking pilot projects] are to demonstrate that this important resource can be developed in an environmentally safe way, similar to how the same unconventional resources have been implemented in the United States and Canada.”

The experience with 20,000 fracking wells in the Canadian province of British Colombia tells another story.

The Government of Canada has not taken a formal position on fracking in Colombia (despite the environmental and human rights implications), nor has it encouraged the Colombian government to ratify the Escazú Agreement for the protection of environmental defenders as have the Embassies of Norway, Germany and Sweden in Colombia.

PBI-Canada continues to follow this situation.

To watch a webinar convened by PBI and Above Ground on April 29 on fracking and extractivism in Colombia, please click here.