Photo: “The Campo Rubiales oil complex extends over approximately 55,000 hectares and reached its greatest visibility under the administration of Pacific Rubiales, currently Frontera Energy.” Photo by Álvaro Avendaño.

The environmental news platform Mongabay reports: “[A] bill that creates and legally defines environmental liabilities – that is, the long-term and abandoned environmental damage left by mining, extractive or landfill projects, among others – is advancing for the first time with good options for progress in the Colombian legislature.”

The article explains: “The main objective of this project is to define environmental liabilities before the law, an aspect in which there is a legal vacuum today.”

It further notes that there is a difference between environmental liabilities and the environmental impacts of a project:

– “Environmental liabilities are all those damages that are poorly managed and that are identified after the end of the operation of mining, oil, landfill projects, among others, that pollute and affect the environment.”

– “[Environmental impacts] are projected before the execution of an extractive or industrial intervention to the environment and are managed and are supposed to be resolved through environmental management plans.”

It is believed that there are at least 1,843 environmental liabilities in Colombia. Twenty-four per cent of those liabilities are in the hydrocarbon sector.

The article includes the photo above of Campo Rubiales.

The Campo Rubiales oil field, in Puerto Gaitán, Meta, was operated by the Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales Energy in association with Ecopetrol since 2006. Rutas del Conflicto has reported: “A notice at the entrance to the Rubiales-Piriri and Quifa oil complex noted that visitors were entering a piece of Canada in Colombia.”

This report co-authored by the José Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective (CCAJAR) notes: “On July 1, 2016, operations at the Rubiales concession were turned over in their entirety to the majority state-owned company Ecopetrol.”

The report highlights: “Due to the drop in oil prices, among other factors, Pacific has entered into insolvency proceedings in Canada to avoid bankruptcy. This transition, combined with a lack of state initiatives, has raised deep concerns regarding accountability and possible reparations for social and environmental liabilities incurred over the previous years.”

Criminalization of social protests

That report also documented violations of labour rights and union rights; the distortion of the prior consultation process and the social disarticulation of Indigenous Peoples; environmental impacts and land issues; and criminalization, an imbalanced justice system, and abuses at the hands of security providers.

The report states: “An increase in social, labor, environmental, and trade union conflicts between oil companies, local communities, and industry employees in Puerto Gaitan has coincided with a phenomenon in which individuals involved in social protest have increasingly become the subjects of criminal proceedings. Scenarios were documented in which illegal persecution and an excessive use of force have been employed by state and private agents, especially targeting trade union leaders, human rights defenders, and others who organize protests in response to labor conditions, environmental mismanagement, contracting models, and the social investment policies implemented by private companies.”

And the report cautions: “This is a worrying situation, especially when one takes into consideration the existence of Cooperation Agreements between the companies (Ecopetrol and Pacific) and the Colombian Prosecutor General’s Office, the National Police or diverse units within the armed forces.”

Webinar, October 11

This webinar will feature social leaders Ferney Salcedo, Yulivel Leal, Ninfa Cruz (COSPACC) and Reymundo Vásquez (CSPP).

In August 2015, Pacific Rubiales changed its name to Pacific Exploration and Production and then again in June 2017 to Frontera Energy.

By November 2018, Frontera had signed two agreements with the Ministry of Defence after the community of San Luis de Palenque, Casanare organized protests against the impacts of the company’s Cubiro Block operations.

Days after those agreements were signed, a pre-dawn military operation arrested eight social leaders in San Luis de Palenque.

That lead UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst to express his concern about “the apparent connection between Frontera Energy, the army’s 16th brigade and the Attorney General’s Support Office in this criminalization.”

To register for this upcoming PBI-organized webinar that will discuss this criminalization, please click here.

The full Mongabay article can be read at Un proyecto de ley busca saldar la deuda que tiene Colombia con los pasivos ambientales.

“For every tree you plant, you guarantee water for three people.” Frontera Energy has been linked to 56 oil incidents in Colombia over the past 7 years. Photo by PBI-Canada; San Luis de Palenque, July 1, 2022.

Mongabay Latam reports that there have been 2,133 oil incidents and spills in Colombia from 2015 to June 2022. 

At least 92 of those incidents have been linked to Canadian companies: Frontera Energy/Pacific Rubiales (56), Gran Tierra (26) and Parex Resources (10).

The largest number of incidents – with 1,447 cases – are linked to Ecopetrol, the state-owned oil company which has received more than $3 billion in financing from Toronto-based Scotiabank from 2018 to 2021.

The Mongabay analysis was based on figures collected by the National Environmental Licensing Authority (ANLA) accessed through Oscar Sampayo of the Yariguíes Regional Corporation (CRY-GEAM) and Senator Fabián Díaz.

The data relates to “operational incidents such as leaks, spills, piting or collapses in the conduction lines, failures in the operations of wells or others.”

Sampayo comments: “Official information on spills, incidents and operational failures in Colombia raises several questions. First, if there is an under-registration of the information. Second, whether the oil companies file the truthful and timely information about the spills. And third, whether the institutions and environmental authorities have the tools to verify or corroborate the information provided by the oil companies.”

The analysis reveals that Santander is the department (province) with the most incidents and spills, with 879 cases (41 per cent of the overall total).

Mongabay notes: “Among the municipalities with the most incidents stands out Barrancabermeja, in Santander, where an Ecopetrol refinery is located.”

Sampayo further comments: “The incidents near the [Barrancabermeja] refinery are huge. The Comptroller’s Office audited the refinery’s Contingency Plan and found that [these problems] are systematic and repetitive facts. There is oil activity with many risks and with an impact on nature.”

Oscar Sampayo spoke on a PBI-Canada webinar, April 29, 2021.

Scotiabank financed Ecopetrol has the most incidents

The analysis also indicates that Ecopetrol is the oil company with the most incidents with 1,447 cases (67 per cent of the overall total).

But Ecopetrol tells Mongabay that between 2011 and 2021 it had 190 “incidents [operational spills greater than a barrel of net hydrocarbon] with potential impact on the environment due to operational causes.”

Toronto-based Scotiabank provided USD $3.031 billion in financing to Ecopetrol in the period 2018 to 2021.

Environmental defender holds bottle of contaminated water from the San Silvestre wetland ecosystem near Barrancabermeja with Ecopetrol oil refinery in the background. Photo by PBI-Canada, June 30, 2022.

Canadian company Pacific Rubiales “high severity event”

Mongabay notes that one of the high-severity events during the seven year period related to the Pacific Rubiales company in Puerto Gaitán, Meta. It details: “In the Pacific Rubiales incidents there were more than 2800 barrels of raw water that affected the soil, water and flora, in particular a body of water tributary to Caño Ivoto.”

In August 2015, Pacific Rubiales changed its name to Pacific Exploration and Production and then again in June 2017 to Frontera Energy.

Canadian companies – 92 incidents

The list of the companies with the most spills during the seven year period include Canadian companies Frontera Energy (40) and Pacific Rubiales (16) for a total of 56 incidents, Gran Tierra Energy Colombia Ltd. (26), and Parex Resources Colombia Ltd. (10).

Peace Brigades International visits Bajo Simacota, Santander where community members have raised concerns about the impacts of the Parex Resources Aguas Blancas oil field. Photo by PBI-Canada, June 29, 2022.

The number of oil incidents could increase in the years to come.

Of the 69 new exploration blocks awarded between 2019 and 2021 in Colombia, at least 39 went to Canadian companies: Parex Resources (26), Canacol Energy Ltd. (5), Gran Tierra Energy (4), and Frontera Energy (4).

Semana also recently reported: “Contrary to what is happening in the rest of the world, with a decrease in investments in the hydrocarbons sector, the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) assured that in Colombia historical figures will be registered between 2022 and 2030 on the part of this sector.”

The article continues: “In the next eight years, investments of 5,200 million dollars [$5.2 billion] are expected in the oil sector, which means that approximately 580 million dollars will be allocated each year, in accordance with the commitments acquired by the companies in the contracts signed.”

And it notes: “In this same period of time it is expected that some 31 exploratory wells will be drilled each year, which are those that are made to confirm new discoveries of gas or oil in the country.”

Extractivism and dangers for environmental defenders

In its most recent report, Decade of Defiance, Global Witness documents the killing of 1,733 land environmental defenders over the past 10 years.

322 of those were killed in Colombia.

The BBC reports: “Many of [the 1,733] who died were indigenous people, often involved in struggles to prevent the exploitation of their lands by mining, oil, logging or hydropower developers. …Researchers believe that as the world attempts to increase the exploitation of fossil fuels in the wake of the war in Ukraine, campaigners will come under greater threats.”

Environmental defenders in Santander have stated that they suspect a connection between the paramilitary groups threatening them and Ecopetrol.

We also raise the concern that Canadian oil companies, operating in areas of paramilitary activity and state violence, contribute, directly or indirectly, to this situation.

The full Mongabay Latam article can be read at En Colombia se han presentado 2133 incidentes y derrames de hidrocarburos entre 2015 y junio de 2022.

PBI WEBINAR, OCTOBER 11

This webinar will feature social leaders Ferney Salcedo, Yulivel Leal, Ninfa Cruz (COSPACC) and Reymundo Vásquez (CSPP).

After protesting against Frontera Energy over social, environmental and infrastructure concerns, eight community members from San Luis de Palenque were arrested in a pre-dawn military raid that involved a Black Hawk helicopter landing on their farmyards.

Notably, that happened after Frontera signed $1-million-plus protection agreements with the military.

That lead UN Special Rapporteur Michel Forst to express his concern about “the apparent connection between Frontera Energy, the army’s 16th brigade and the Attorney General’s Support Office in this criminalization.”

To hear more of this story, register now for our webinar by clicking here.

Photo: ESMAD riot police deployed against community protests against Frontera in San Luis de Palenque, January 2018. Photo: PBI visits an abandoned Frontera well near San Luis de Palenque, July 2022.