Yesterday, July 10, the General Manager of EP Petroecuador, Pablo Flores, made a technical visit to the sector known as El Chicharrón, in the province of Napo, where work is being carried out to build a fourth variant of the Trans-Ecuadorian Pipeline System. (SOTE), and confirmed the progress of these tasks that will serve to protect the integrity of the pipeline and maintain continuous operation.
In this regard, the General Manager of the public company stated “we are building a 220-meter bypass that will be momentary and will serve so that the operation of SOTE, and therefore oil exports do not stop, while we work in parallel in the construction of a variant of 720 meters, with which we precautionary the pipeline and the operation of the pipeline ”.
In this sector, the phenomenon of regressive erosion of the Coca River has accelerated in recent days, which caused additional works to be implemented, since three variants were previously built, one of 1.8 kilometers and two additional of 680 and 380 meters, which served to get away from the river bed, between 200 and 400 meters.
A shut-off valve was also installed, which will allow oil to be evacuated in the event of an emergency and avoid any damage to nature.
The works to build this variant will last two to three weeks, and will depend on the climatic and topographic conditions that are adverse in this area, since there are constant rains and landslides.
Similarly, technicians from the EP Petroecuador carry out daily monitoring of this area, to verify the progress of erosion, in order to issue early alerts and avoid incidents with the SOTE pipeline. In addition, the public company has the constant support of various institutions of the United States government, as well as the Institute of Geological and Energy Research (IIGE), which carry out regressive erosion studies.
