LIMA, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Peru's state-owned oil company
Petroperu signed a license agreement on Tuesday to return to
producing crude oil, starting at one of the country's largest
oil blocks, with plans to invest $638 million in the site to
develop new wells.
Petroperu will take over Block 192, located in the Amazon
near the border with Ecuador and operated by Canada's Frontera
Energy Corp between 2015 and 2020. It has been inactive
since then.
The agreement comes after the state oil company announced
plans to return to crude oil production. A privatization wave in
the 1990s left it with only its refining and fuel marketing
businesses.
"This constitutes a fundamental step to strengthening the
vertical integration of Petroperu," energy and mines minister
Oscar Vera said in a statement after signing the agreement,
which will allow the firm to operate the block for 30 years.
The project will have an initial production of 10,000
barrels of crude oil per day, he added, with processing taking
place at the new Talara Refinery, which restarted operations in
early February.
The reactivation of Block 192, which produced some 8.3
million barrels of oil between 2015 and 2020, will boost
national crude oil production by 25%, the oil regulator said in
a separate statement.
Petroperu's planned $638 million investment in the site will
also serve to develop 20 production wells and one exploration
well over the term of the contract, the regulator added.
The announcement comes despite opposition to the extraction
of crude oil in the region by some of the twenty-five native
Amazonian communities who live around the oil field.
They allege extraction contaminates their lands amid
constant spills from an oil pipeline that carries oil from the
jungle to the Petroperu refinery on the country's Pacific coast.
(Reporting by Marco Aquino; Writing by Isabel Woodford; Editing
by Chris Reese)
Messaging: rm://marco.aquino.reuters.net@thomsonreuters.com/))
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