Petroperu to Restart 200,000 b/d Oil Pipeline: Official

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(Argus, 16.Dec.2021) — State oil company Petroperu has reached an agreement with protesters to end a two-and-a-half month takeover of its 200,000 b/d North Peruvian oil pipeline (ONP), a senior government official and the firm’s main crude supplier said Dec. 16.

Villagers demanding greater social spending in the northern Amazon jungle took over the pipeline’s main pumping station on Oct. 5, forcing the company to halt pumping operations.

“Today they will release the pumping stations that have been in the hands of indigenous communities,” cabinet chief Mirtha Vasquez told reporters in Lima via Zoom. “This is an example of how we can manage these situations via dialogue.”

Canadian producer PetroTal, which supplies Petroperu’s 62,000 b/d Talara and 12,000 b/d Iquitos refineries, said Petroperu will take a week to inspect the pipeline and restart operations.

The agreement with the protesters “demonstrates trust and a commitment to ongoing dialogue,” the Calgary-based company said Dec. 16 in a statement.

Petroperu’s press office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

PetroTal, whose Block 95 oilfield in the Maranon Basin hit a record 20,200 b/d this week after completing a fifth well, added it expects to ship a total of 320,000 barrels of crude by river barges to Brazil in November and December. The company added it began drilling a sixth well (10H) at the block’s Bretana field.

PetroTal aims to boost production to 24,000 b/d in 2022 once it completes a $100 million, eight-well drilling program.

Peru’s oil production, which was running at a 10-year high in late 2019, has yet to fully recover as Canada’s Frontera Energy and Pluspetrol of Argentina halted production at their fields in the northern jungle. Crude output rebounded 13% to 37,923 b/d in November from 33,484 b/d a year earlier, when operations were hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

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