2023-06-25 23:12:54
The maximum point of the flooding of the Neuquén river will reach the Portezuelo Grande dam during the early hours of this Monday. After so many years of drought, it is difficult for specialists to calculate the flow that it will have by then. If a certain mark of the diversion towards the Los Barreales reservoir is exceeded, the passage of water through the historic channel will increase, the one that goes from Añelo to El Chañar and that runs through gas plants and other facilities of the Loma de la Lata field.
Cerros Colorados, the complex of which Portezuelo Grande is a part, It is the only hydroelectric project in the region that does not dam the water but rather drifts it. Towards Los Barreales and then, by means of a dam, to Mari Menuco, from where it is restored to the Neuquén River.
To the north of both reservoirs there is still the historic course of the river, only that it runs with an ecological flow of barely 12 cubic meters per second (even in drought, the Neuquén has levels of about 80 when it reaches Portezuelo).
This historical channel is meandering and many of the facilities with which YPF exploits the Loma de la Lata deposit are located on this area, compression plants included.
This Sunday the Interjurisdictional Basin Authority (AIC) announced towards sunset that, if the river reaches Portezuelo Grande with a flow greater than 8,000 cubic meters per second, the floodgates will open to the historic channel.
Those 8,000 cubic meters per second are the maximum bypass capacity that, in the design, Portezuelo Grande has. It is what the adductor canal supports, in theory.
In any case, it is estimated that in July 2006, when the maximum flood on record occurred, the river reached Portezuelo Grande with some 10,000 cubic meters per second. and although the floodgates were opened towards the historical channel, it was not to let all the surplus pass through because it was maneuvered to the millimeter so that this was not necessary.
In any case, there were facilities affected by the flood, although without affecting the pumping of gas in a decisive way.
The largest gas field is now not Loma de la Lata but Loma Campana, in the Vaca Muerta geological formation, which is to the north of the historic riverbed.
Julio Porrino, Secretary of Control of the AIC, explained to him BLACK RIVER that the flows are calculated in gauging stations that have models made when the drought was not so severe.
What is done is to measure the course of the river to develop a model: a certain height corresponds to a flow. But the drought modified the banks and now it is a little more uncertain if this model is infallible.
That is why they must have the radars well alert to divert water through where not so much flow has passed for 17 years.
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