2023-05-24 03:05:00
Almost two months after the suspension of the public hearing to be held in Río Negro In order to advance with the strategic export pole for Vaca Muerta that the flag oil company YPF has in hand, the provincial authorities are analyzing a new date. Still no official confirmation would arrive five months after the original day. The parties have not yet defined what will be discussed in the space for citizen participation. The details, in this note.
As this medium was able to find out, stakeholders held an informal meeting at the Global Green Hydrogen Forum, which the Province carried out in Bariloche, last week. The meeting was attended by authorities from both YPF and the Government.
Still unconfirmed the tentative date that was discussed to hold the public hearing of the Vaca Muerta Oil Sur Pipeline, it was august. However, the day would go to the background because there is a point that escalated in priority and it is the project that will be taken to the audience.
The Province wants the entire project to be studied in a single hearing which would include not only the construction of the pipeline (Section I to Allen), but also the port and the monobuoy (Section II). However, this is currently not possible.for various reasons that will be detailed later.
While, from the oil company they assure that they have not yet been notified of a formal date and that, as originally proposed, they seek to hold a hearing first for the pipeline and then another for the rest of the project.
YPF pipeline in Río Negro: One or two hearings?
The initial idea was to hold a public hearing first for the pipeline and then another for the rest of the project, which culminates on the Atlantic coast with one of the largest hydrocarbon exporting ports in South America.
As it is a project of this magnitude, the company first advanced with all the environmental studies and legal requirements of the pipeline. For this reason, the initial date to present this information at the hearing, which included the section that passes through Neuquén, was ready before March, when it was cancelled. For this reason, in the province that is the head of the developments of shale, It was done on April 20.
With which, there is an environmental impact study for the pipe and another for the export port which, by the way,It is in progress and not yet finished. But, in addition, they have different financing, therefore, the idea of Río Negro today seems more like a wish than a reality.
Even for practical purposes, It is in the company’s best interest to move forward with the pipeline to keep the project on tracknot only because all the legal requirements are up to date, but because the work was trapped -for no real reason- in controversies by environmental groups.
It should not be neglected that initially the hearing was going to be held in March, close to the date it was made in Neuquén and, if it was done in August (today’s tentative date), it would already accumulate five months behind schedule.
- 127 kilometers
- will tour YPF’s Vaca Muerta Oil Sur pipeline.
Most likely, the firm will arrive in August with the environmental impact study for the second section of the work finished. However, both the day of the hearing and the sections that will take place, for now, have not been defined.
It is pertinent to remark that public hearings are not binding, which in other words means that, despite everything that is discussed, the final decision is always in the hands of the application authority of each province.
The environmental controversy that muddied the pipeline
The hearing was suspended practically from one day to the next. and the official announcement was a brief message of little diffusion by the Secretary of Environment and Climate Change. According to the investigations carried out by this medium, the hearing was suspended due to a legal contingency on the part of the application authority.
The truth is the work was involved in a controversy of those that the oil industry always seeks to avoid. It was capitalized by environmental groups that had filed claims and carried out activities against the project. And that, immediately after it became known that the hearing was not held, they adjudicated the result.
The play on words was also in his favor and that is that the hearing was going to be rescheduled, but given the impossibility of setting a date, what until now is a suspension was held.
The details of the project that YPF wants to take to a hearing
The hearings of both provinces were intended to evaluate the study of the environmental impact of Section 1 of the work, which will have surface work plus an oil pipeline with an extension of 127 kilometers. The pipe will be born in the main Vaca Muerta oil area that YPF operates together with Chevron, Loma Campana.
It will depart from the Crude Treatment Plant (PTC) of YPF’s flagship block and It will travel about 87 km to the Lago Pellegrini pumping station. Of that extension, some 45 km will pass through Neuquén soil, while the remaining almost 42 km will pass through the territory of Río Negro.
Then, already on Rio Negro soil, there is a second section that will be 40 km long that will link the Lago Pellegrini pumping station to Allen. This section will be larger, 30 inches. In total, of the 127 kilometers of the channel, there are 45 km that will pass through Neuquén and some 82 km over Río Negro.
- 82 kilometers
- it will cross the channel over the territory of Río Negro.
The pipeline will have a total transportation capacity of 62,300 cubic meters, that is, up to 392,000 barrels of oil per day. It will be a flow to be achieved in various stages of the project.
The public hearing for the almost 45 km of the pipe that will pass through Neuquén was held on April 20, in person in the town of Añelo, without inconvenience.
The Vaca Muerta Oil Sur project is key for the oil company, and contemplates in a second stage the extension of the pipeline to the area of Punta Coloradawhere it is also expected to build a large oil export port for large ships. It is a fundamental leg for the leap in scale that YPF plans for Vaca Muerta.
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