petroleumworld

Pat Murphy: Amazon defense coalition
crude - deception Texaco Ecuador memo

A memorandum from Texaco makes it appear the oil company didn't want to report oil spills in Ecuador during the company's partnership with the state-owned oil company PetroEcuador in 1972, according to a news release issued yesterday from Amazon Defense Coalition, which is pursuing a multi-billion dollar lawsuit against the oil company.

However, the Amazon Defense Coalition failed to provide the full account of the memo in an effort to deceive the public and impact public opinion against Chevron, which purchased Texaco in 2000. The Amazon Defense Coalition failed to disclose that the internal memo did not effect Texaco's reporting of oil spills in Ecuador, which were regulated by its partnership with the Ecuadorian government and had to be reported to them.

The 1972 Texaco memo does not state oil spills should be hidden from Ecuadorian authorities. The Amazon Defense Coalition also did not disclose additional memos and information in their possession which detailed spill reporting procedures followed by Texaco.

The news release from the Amazon Defense Coalition is part of a coordinated political and legal campaign with the Amazon Watch group against Bay Area-based Chevron Corporation. The long-running legal battle is funded by the law firm of Kohn Swift and Graf which is providing money to attorney Steven Donziger, who in turn supports the publicity efforts of Amazon Watch/Defense Coalition against Chevron for allegedly damaging the Ecuadorian Amazon river in the Oriente region .

A number of experts believe damage to the Ecuadorian Amazon were caused solely by PetroEcuador. The Latin Business Chronicle reported earlier this year that “It is not Chevron which should be sued for environmental damages in Ecuador, but the country's own state oil company .”

The Wall Street Journal has noted that Donziger (and supporters Amazon Watch and Amazon Defense Coalition) were only looking for a “fat settlement” of money rather than seeking to clean up the ecological mess that was created by PetroEcuador. Why is the law firm of Kohn Swift and Graf, attorney Steven Donziger and these environmental groups protecting PetroEcuador instead of demanding that it clean up the millions of gallons of oil that the Ecuadorian State-owned oil monopoly has dumped into the Amazon River basin ?

Pat Murphy is Editor & Publisher of San Francisco Sentinel (SanFranciscoSentinel@yahoo.com). Petroleumworld not necessarily share these views.

Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by SanFrancisco.com, on 10/16 2008. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers.

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Petroleumworld News 10/17/08

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