PASSENGERS arriving on the sole daily flight to the Las Malvinas gas-processing plant by the lower Urubamba river in Peru are ushered into a waiting room and shown a video. This contains a long list of “don’ts” for the Camisea gas project’s 600 permanent workers, including bans on bringing food and having contact with the Amerindian peoples of the surrounding forest. To get on the flight, which is chartered by Pluspetrol, the Argentine firm that operates the gas concession, passengers must have a medical pass, issued only after vaccination against flu and yellow fever.These conditions embody bitter lessons. Camisea is Peru’s most important source of energy, pumping 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas a day. Since 2004 it has provided the government with more than $6 billion in royalties. Gas from Camisea’s Block 88, which has the biggest probable reserves in the Peruvian Amazon, is sold at a regulated price of $1.80-3.30 per million British thermal units, which has helped fuel Peru’s stellar economic growth of the past dozen years. (By contrast, energy-short Chile imports gas at $8-11 per million Btus.)But most of the block lies in the Kugapakori-Nahua-Nanti reserve,...
from The Economist: The Americas http://ift.tt/1fatBkV
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