Peru’s Prime Minister threatens to nationalize vital Camisea gas field

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Peru’s Prime Minister, Guido Bellido, threatened this Sunday (26) to nationalize the Camisea gas field if the consortium formed by Argentina’s Pluspetrol, Spain’s Repsol, and U.S. Hunt Oil, among other companies, refuses to “renegotiate” the distribution of benefits in favor of the State.

In a message published in the social network Twitter, Bellido assured that the government is summoning the consortium to agree to deliver a more significant share to the state of the profits obtained from the sale of gas from one of the largest gas fields in Latin America.

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“We are summoning the company that exploits and commercializes Camisea gas to renegotiate the distribution of profits in favor of the State. Otherwise, we will opt for the recovery or nationalization of our field”, Bellido published without prior notice.

The renegotiation of the concession contracts for the exploitation of Camisea, located in the Amazon jungle of the southern region of Cusco, was an electoral campaign promise of the socialist party Peru Libre, to which Bellido, who is also a native of Cusco, belongs.

After the President of the Council of Ministers made this announcement, the Peruvian President, Pedro Castillo, has not commented on the matter.

PLUSPETROL, LARGEST SHAREHOLDER

Within the Camisea consortium, Pluspetrol is the largest owner with a 27% stake, followed by US Hunt Oil (25.1%), Korean SK Innovatión (17.6%), Spanish Repsol (10%), Argentine Tecpetrol (10%), and Algerian Sonatrach (10%).

Since 2019, Pluspetrol’s purchase of SK Innovation’s stake has been blocked by requiring the Peruvian state to sign an anti-corruption clause that obliged the buyer to divest its rights over the field if any corruption case is found by Camisea in the future.

Since 2004, Pluspetrol has been in charge of exploring and exploiting natural gas reserves in blocks 56 and 88 of Camisea and its subsequent processing at the Malvinas fractioning plant, located on the banks of the Urubamba River, where liquids and dry gas are separated.

From that plant, the gas is transported by a pipeline of more than 500 kilometers to the port of Pisco, on the Pacific Ocean, where there is a fractioning plant for export and domestic consumption in homes.

0.5% OF GDP IN ROYALTIES

Under normal conditions, Camisea produces between 43 and 48 million cubic meters of gas per day, coming from blocks 56 and 88 in charge of Pluspetrol and 57 in order of Repsol, according to the Energy and Mining Investment Supervisory Agency (Osinergmin).

In this way, Camisea produces 92% of Peru’s natural gas, which allows the generation of more than 40% of the electricity consumed at the national level.

During its first 15 years of operations, Camisea invoiced US$30 billion after an investment of US$5 billion and generated royalties for the Peruvian State amounting to US$8 billion, equivalent to 0.5% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).

It is not the first time that Bellido launched controversial messages on Twitter. Earlier in the week, he urged the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Óscar Maúrtua, to resign if he disagreed with the government recognizing that Nicolás Maduro as the legitimate President of Venezuela.