OECD Netherlands Office says oil company violated indigenous rights in Peru

Lima, Sep 3 (EFE).- The Netherlands office of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is responsible for enforcing the organization's corporate social responsibility guidelines, concluded that the Argentine-owned, Amsterdam-based oil company Pluspetrol violated the fundamental rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon during the 15 years it was in charge of exploiting Lot 192, Peru's largest oil field (2000-2015).

The OECD's National Contact Point (NCP) in the Netherlands, which focuses on out-of-court mediations and whose resolutions are not coercive, determined that the oil company "has not taken sufficient measures to prevent negative environmental impacts and, therefore, has not sufficiently addressed health-related risks."

Furthermore, it specifies that the company entered into "agreements with indigenous communities that contain potentially disadvantageous clauses for these communities, which are not in line with expectations regarding human rights" in its operations in Lot 1AB (now Lot 192), located in the Peruvian department of Loreto, the largest in Peru.

The statement urges Pluspetrol to remedy all damage caused by its extractive activities in this territory, which had accumulated more than four decades of oil exploitation at the time of the company's withdrawal.

It states that the environmental and social impacts continue to seriously affect the Quechua indigenous peoples of the Pastaza River, the Achuar of the Corrientes River, and the Kichwa of the Tigre River.

This statement by the Netherlands' National Commission for Indigenous Peoples (PNC) follows a process initiated in March 2020, when a representative of four Indigenous federations (Fediquep, Feconacor, Opikafpe, and Acodecospat) traveled to Amsterdam to file a formal complaint with the OECD.

Complaint filed in 2021

The complaint was admitted in 2021, the first to be accepted by a National Civil Protection Agency (PNC) in a case against a "mailbox company," a term used by the complainants that defines a company registered in a country with a favorable tax regime but with no actual economic activity there.

"It's good news to hear the OECD National Contact Point say that Pluspetrol is responsible for remediating our territory, at least minimizing the pollution in our territory," said Robinson Sandi, indigenous leader and president of the Northern Amazonian Oil Observatory (Opikafpe), in the information released.

According to the PNC statement, the complaint filed by the Indigenous federations shows evidence of violations of fundamental rights such as access to safe water, food security, health, land, and self-determination.

Among the reported incidents are oil spills, industrial wastewater discharges, and soil and water contamination.

According to data from the Fund for the Promotion of Protected Natural Areas of Peru (Profonampe), Pluspetrol has left 3,249 sites impacted in the region.

Company does not assume prior contamination

However, the company maintains that it is only responsible for the pollution caused during the period it was in charge of operating the wells. The State is also requiring it to take responsibility for the pollution caused by other companies that previously operated the wells, as agreed in its contract.

The company claims it is only responsible for the contamination caused during the period it was in charge of operating the wells, as it inherited a field with pre-existing contamination caused by the previous companies that operated Lot 192 since the 1970s.

"We are fully aware of the damage the company has caused; we are sorry for what has happened. We know Pluspetrol is no longer in the area, but we want it to assume responsibility," said Indigenous leader Aurelio Piñola.

In 2021, Peruvian environmental authorities definitively rejected the Abandonment Plan submitted by Pluspetrol, after six years of unresolved observations.

Stopped wells

Pluspetrol left Lot 192 in 2015 after its concession contract expired. In its place, the Canadian company Frontera took over with a temporary contract, awaiting the acquisition of an operator for the next 30 years, in consortium with the state-owned Petroperú, following a law passed by Congress requiring the public company to assume exploitation.

However, ten years after that vote, the field has been halted. The COVID-19 pandemic paralyzed it, and Petroperú's efforts to bring it online have been unsuccessful after its alliance with Colombian company Altamesa failed, as the latter company decided not to continue production and exited the field in 2025.

Lot 192 covers an area of ​​512,000 hectares and is the most productive in the country, with estimated reserves of 127 million barrels of oil and a production capacity of 12,000 barrels per day. EFE

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