Peruvian officials are breathing easier since awarding a new contract for the long-stalled Camisea natural gas project. Environmental and indigenous groups are not. They worry the new concession-holders will not provide the same environmental and social safeguards promised by the previous concessionaires—Royal Dutch-Shell and Mobil, which quit the project nearly two years ago in a dispute with the government. At issue is the development of vast gas reserves underlying the Camisea region, an area of virgin rainforest and remote Indian communities some 350 miles (500km) east of Lima. The government last month awarded a 40-year concession for the project to a consortium comprising Argentina’s Pluspetrol Resources, U.S.-based Hunt Oil Company and Korea’s SK Group. Headed by Pluspetrol, the consortium...
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Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc., a U.S. company hoping to provide private launch services for the burgeoning commercial satellite industry, appears to be closing in on a deal to develop a launch site in Guyana. The Frisco, Texas company and Guyana are discussing an arrangement that would provide 26,000 acres (10,500 hectares) of coastal wetlands for a launch site and surrounding safety zone. The Guyanese government’s lead negotiator, Edgar Heyligar, was quoted recently as saying that an agreement would likely be reached this month. Beal declines to discuss the timing of a deal, but it appears optimistic. Says company spokesman Wade Gates: “There’s no final deal yet, but we hope to have everything wrapped up in the near future.” Beal, owned by Dallas, Texas banker Andrew...
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A reportedly unfavorable evaluation of Mexico’s Laguna Verde nuclear power plant near Veracruz has triggered a dispute between lawmakers who want to review the appraisal and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), which says it must remain confidential. Serious safety and operating deficiencies were discovered in a November plant inspection conducted by the World Association of Nuclear Operators (WANO), according to the newsweekly Proceso. WANO, which has regional centers in Atlanta, London, Paris, Tokyo and Moscow, was formed as part of a self-policing effort by the nuclear-power industry after the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Citing unnamed plant technicians and scientists, Proceso reports that WANO gave Laguna Verde its lowest possible score—a five, which would warrant halting operations at the plant. But after intensive lobbying...
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Authorities at the Venezuelan Port of La Guaira overlooked Murphy’s Law when they allowed containers of chemicals and toxic waste to accumulate for years in Warehouses 24 and 26. Little was done to safeguard the containers, the bulk of which were unclaimed or confiscated. But what could happen to them, anyway? Well, what could happen did last December 15, when mudslides and floods devastated Vargas state. The deluge ravaged the port, picking up containers of mercury, caustic soda, sulfuric acid and other substances and carrying them into the harbor or breaking them open in the warehouse area. Government agencies have issued conflicting reports about the danger to human and marine life, evidently because they still lack solid information. Several thousand people in the adjacent villages...
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