Ecuador’s Ministry of Energy and Mines authorities traveled to the Amazon’s Orellana province on Wednesday to verify the closure of the Ishpingo B-56 well, one of 247 that make up the reservoir.
In this way, the production volume of the 43-ITT area (Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini) will be “gradually reduced”, the State Department indicated in a statement.
The memo added that the extraction of submersible electrical equipment and the production pipe will now continue, and cleaning works will be carried out in the well, after which cement plugs will be placed for the final abandonment of the structure.
“Complying with the ITT closure is not an easy task, it requires special and technical planning,” Energy and Mines Minister Antonio Goncalves said at the protocol ceremony on Wednesday.
From there he insisted that a complete closure should occur within five years and five months so as not to affect the environment and much less the surrounding communities, although environmental and regional recovery could take up to 11 years.
Ecuador set a world first after 59 percent of the population voted on August 20, 2023, to stop oil extraction in Yasuni National Park, one of the most biodiverse areas in the world.
According to the government’s plan announced last week, 10 wells will be closed in 2024, and starting in 2025, 48 wells will be taken out of service annually.
However, the Constitutional Court ordered the gradual and orderly withdrawal of all ITT infrastructure, within “a period not exceeding one year” from the date of notification of the results of the popular poll, i.e. August 31, 2023.
Ecuadorian environmental group Yasunidos today described President Daniel Noboa’s government’s plan to comply with the popular mandate in Yasuni as a “mockery.”
Despite the efforts made by the executive body to show that it worked to close the ITT field, it has only created a fuss without any real progress, the organization said on its social networks.
For this reason, they asked the Constitutional Court to hold an immediate hearing to decide what the Ecuadorian people decided in the popular referendum held a year ago.
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