Peruvian oil pipeline pumps oil again after three months stopped

The Oleoducto Nor Peruano (ONP), which transports oil extracted from several wells in the Amazon to the Pacific Ocean, returned to pumping crude oil on Saturday after three months without functioning due to the COVID-19 crisis.

The pumping of oil was stopped on April 30th as a preventive measure by the state oil company Petroperu, operator of the pipeline, due to the advance of the pandemic in Peru and coinciding with the suspension of activities in several wells due to the low prices at which the barrel of oil fell.

In the last few weeks, the usual prices of crude oil have recovered, as the price of a barrel of Brent is now 43.64 dollars, when three months ago it was around 26. Likewise, for a barrel of Texas, 40.44 dollars are now paid, twice the price it had at the beginning of May.

With these quotations, oil production from the Amazon is once again profitable for the Canadian oil company Frontera and the Argentinean company Pluspetrol, among others.

Petroperu informed this Saturday in a press release that the return to operations of the pipeline has been carried out "with the guarantees of strict compliance to the biosecurity protocols", so that all employees have passed discard tests before returning to their jobs.

Among the prevention and control actions, all the pipeline stations have been conditioned so that the workers carry out their activities with social security distance, protection equipment and hand washing.

Peru's oil production at the end of 2019 stood at 60,000 barrels of oil per day, bringing the total for the year to $773 million in royalties and $500 million in fees for the regions and municipalities where the wells are located.