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Francisco Hurtado
Francisco Hurtado
¿DE DONDE SALDRÁ EL CRUDO PARA PROCESAR EN LA REFINERÍA DEL PACIFICO?
Related to country: Ecuador
Translations available in: Spanish (original) | French | Italian | German | Portuguese | English | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

OF WHERE WILL LEAVE THE CRUDE ONE TO PROCESS IN THE REFINERY OF THE PACIFIC?
Automatically translated into English thanks to WorldLingo

Ecological action

Julio 2008

Always has been repeated which the Ecuadorians we have bad memory, that we do not learn of the passed lessons, at the moment we are facing a situation that graphical very well this popular saying, is the construction of the Complex Petrochemical Refiner and of the Pacific, denominated? The work of greater investment in the History of the Country. The characteristics that surround the promotion of this megaproyecto have great similarities with which it happened in 2001 with the construction of the OCP, also catalogued at that time like the most important investment of the country, it was spoken of the beginning of a new oil boom and it said that it was a project of? life or death? for the country.

History is repeated .....

In February of the 2001 the contract for the construction of the Crude Pipe line of Heavy was signed, after a process of licitation very questioned and without telling on the Studies of Environmental Impact and without to have consulted the population. In order to convince to the public opinion of the necessity to construct this work, were inflated the data on the reserves of crude heavy that the country had, in addition offered 52,000 jobs, to use? end technology? and mainly to obtain the economic income that Ecuador required to invest in social works.

This famous work at the moment transports less than half of its capacity. 7,000 jobs occurred during the construction and soon they were left 800 positions indirect. In the works of construction five were registered I spill of crude and a radioactive alert. One of these spills (caused by the OCP machineries) was in Papallacta, in the lagoon that before served like pick up source of the water for the city of Quito and that was bathed with more than 20,000 petroleum barrels. On the other hand, serious social conflicts in the south of the Amazonía were caused to enter to look for reserves of crude heavy filling the flaming empty tube, getting to threaten the public force to enter indigenous territories. Violations to the human rights among them, but of 70 illegal haltings were registered. And recently the Superior Nueva Court Loja it emitted a failure in first instance that forces OCP to cancel a value of 14 million dollars by environmental damages caused to a group of integral people of the organization Amazonian Network.

The OCP was constructed in spite of the national opposition and international, technical information were not known that demonstrated that the work was not advisable, disqualified and insulted to all that that it was against, became famous phrases of then President Gustavo Noboa, like: The pipe line goes because it goes? I am not going to allow that four fools jodan to the country? ? To that they are against I will persecute trench by trench? ? Four alemancitos are not going to say to me what I must do?

At the moment announces the construction of a new work like? rescuer of the Mother country? and to convince to us of their importance economic, social and environmental arguments are being used again such that before.

The Forest of Pacoche

the Aromo, site chosen for the installation of the new Refinery, is to side of the Forest of Pacoche that has an extension of 190 Km2 of forest of garúa, represents the only lung of that sector and comprises of the great biorregión Tumbecina of high value in biodiversity, specially of birds. One is one of both only forests of garúa that exist in continental Ecuador.

The functions that make this type of forests are: the hydric regulation, to maintain the climate, to maintain the balance ecological, to maintain the control of erosion and drainings, the ground conservation and the recycling of nutrients, is fauna refuges, provides vegetal fibers, medicinal plants and ornamentales, among others, and as no way these forests serve to protect refineries as it maintains the president of the Republic, the toxic gases that emit these industrial plants are not compatible with the existence of these so fragile ecosystems. It is not necessary to destroy a forest to destroy it.

Social impacts

In the zone of the Aromo, to which they have catalogued like vacated, is ancestral population of the culture Blanket as they demonstrate the innumerable archaeological rest to it that they have been in the environs. Of generation in generation the population of the Aromo has dedicated to the culture of the straw toquilla and to weave the famous hats that are sold in Montecristi and whose prestige extends the limits of Ecuador, they represent a national symbol that is recognized anywhere in the world.

The Association of producing craftsmen of hats of Montecristi is transacting the Denomination of Montecristi Origin, for its hats. The aspiration is to fortify this activity and to allow that the weavers and all those that take part in the chain: those that harvests the leaves, those that process them to obtain the straw, the weavers, those who give the finished one and those that gives the design him receive better economic repayment by their work.

The hats are part of our history and culture. The statuettes found in archaeological studies reveal that the manabitas inhabitants used a straw headress in the head. The Spaniards transformed this headress into the Montecristi hats. Historical data demonstrate that the liberal revolution partly financed with the originating income of the sale of the hats

This production will be seen seriously affected by the construction of the refinery.

They say that the refinery will generate in the stage of construction being 10,000 and 12,000 seats of work and once the refinery is in march will have between 1,000 and 1,800 positions. What they do not say is that exactly this supply of work will destroy the form of traditional production that exists in that zone., as it has happened in the Ecuadorian Amazonía in ancestral communities.

Around the refinery a pole of urban development will be created, as it happened in the zone of the Emerald refinery where the population lives in conditions below the line of dignity and lamentable conditions of health. The refinery will attract people of other places, will increase the insecurity, the violence, prostitution and the militarization phenomena that are associate with oil infrastructures.

Environmental impact

the creation of a Center of Environmental Monitoreo does not guarantee that the forest is not destroyed, that the petrochemical process of refinement and does not generate polluting agents, that do not require great amounts of water, element little in the province of Manabí, nor that is not going away to affect the health of the population.

The petrochemical plants much more produce serious impacts that the refineries, as you demonstrate the long list of accidents that have had these industries in other countries and the impacts to it that they have generated. In order to mention single two cases we have the Alarm in China and Russia by the spill of 100 tons of benzene in November of the 2005 and burdens contamination in Argentina by the Petrochemical Pole of Berrison Cove, according to demonstrates a study to it of year 2000.


It is anticipated that the Refinery of the Pacific will process crude heavy (petroleum of the high smaller viscosity to 23° API), of low quality, more cheap and of more expensive refinement. This crude one contains more amount of sulfur and a greater highly toxic mineral concentration, thus the contamination that causes its handling constitutes a risk for the life.

The gases emitted to the atmosphere by petrochemical refineries and contain particles in suspension of heavy metals, volatile sulfur oxides and nitrogen, organic compounds and carbon monoxide. All these substances are toxic, can cause respiratory infections, asthma, affection to mucous, damages to the brain, kidneys, blood, prostate. Some are cancerigenic.

The polluting agents that leave the chimneys of the refineries are transferred by the wind and fertile earth and natural vegetation are deposited in. When it rains hurry dissolved or suspended in the water, causing denominated acid rains that affect the human life, to agriculture, the water bodies?

The residual waters of the refineries also contain toxic substances like heavy metals, radioactive elements, aromatic hydrocarbons, policíclicos hydrocarbons and cyanide salts. These remainders flow through the water bodies, contaminating them, affecting the aquatic life and to the nutritional chains that depend on them. It is important to mention that the water in Manabí is a precious resource. In a zone with seasonal rains, the polluting substances remain in sediments of the water bodies, specially in the zones of low energy, where the movement of the water is slow, becoming constant sources of contamination. These contaminated water bodies can possibly arrive at the sea and affect pesquerías and possibly affect the human being.

In order to construct the petrochemical complex, anywhere of the Aromo in which it is located, one is going away to produce deforestation, and their impacts will not be limited the deforested zone, but that by the edge effect, the affected area will be much greater. The erosion of the ground in the zone where it settles the infrastructure, the noise, the filtration of toxics through ground and therefore phreatic water contamination, will be other causes of deterioration of the health of the forest.

The refineries are industries that require great amounts of water, this is important to stress because this zone of the province of Manabí is dry and already there is a water deficit in cities like Blanket, Portoviejo, Montecristi and Santa Ana. Competirá by the water the Refinery of the Pacific with the manabita population?

So that the change of Jaramijó to the Aromo? ….

The project of construction of this Refinery initially considered the site of Jaramijó, in lands pertaining to Navy. Without no public explanation it was decided to change the place towards the Aromo. We have left the question of which they were the causes.

The Government maintains that he was because the zone of Jaramijó densely is populated, with a great economic potential reason why the Refinery would cause to a fort environmental impact.

If this is the cause How it is understood that changes it towards a located ecological zone to 26 km. of Blanket, in a Protective Forest, only water source stops around 12,000 inhabitants?

One also thinks that the change must to that Navy was against to that is constructed in its estates. Perhaps they if they were consulted and with capacity of I veto?

From where will leave the crude one for the Refinery the Pacific?

The means say that the refinery would have a capacity to refine 300,000 daily barrels of crude. Is thinking to remove them from the ITT? Perhaps is thinking to act from the policy of the completed facts and once the construction of the refinery begins to have the perfect pretext, the definitive pressure so that the country very extends its oil border for the heavy crude extraction of towards zones critics from a social and cultural environmental perspective like the Park Nacional Yasuni?

In conclusion we make a call to the opinion publishes national and to the authorities to reflect deeply before taking this step because the negative impacts are irreversible and irreparable as they have already demonstrated 40 years to us to be an oil country.

On the other hand a signal to the world that Ecuador would initiate a new one was oil, with the construction of the refinery, could finish definitively the initiative maintaining the crude one underneath the Earth within the Park Nacional Yasuní.

It is necessary to watch in another direction, to offer to the country another type of development that is not based on the extraction of nonrenewable natural resources but on a true production that mainly respects to the nature and its resources and to the Ecuadorians that we continued having faith in the engaged change.

(Ecological Action - 2008)