Protecting the Environment

Camisea project in Peruvian Amazon rainforest meets environmental and social challenges

Constructing the Camisea flow and delivery lines was demanding due to technical, weather, environmental, isolation and terrain challenges.

Watson Falzarano, Paragon Engineering Services, Inc., and Raul Gaurisse, Pluspetrol Perú Corp., S.A.

In 1984, after more than three years of exploration in the Peruvian Amazon jungle, Shell discovered the San Martin natural gas field. Two test wells, San Martin-1 and San Martin-2 (SM-1, SM-2), confirmed the size of the find.

A year later, a few kilometers to the south, Shell also discovered the Cashiriari natural gas field. Of the several test wells drilled, Cashiriari-1 and Cashiriari-3 (CS-1, CS-3) confirmed the finding.

These two fields, although not associated with each other, became known as the Camisea Gas Reservoir – named after the river that flows nearby. The Camisea development is located 500 km east of Lima, Peru, on the east side of the Andes Mountains.

From its inception, it was clear that Camisea represented one of the most important natural gas discoveries in Latin America. Reserves were estimated at 11 Tcf. The gas is rich in liquids, with NGL reserves estimated at 600 million bbl.

For many years, Shell and the Peruvian government tried to negotiate an exploitation contract for the Camisea gas, but were never able to agree. In 1998, Shell abandoned its plans for the project.

GOVERNMENTAL OVERSIGHT

The following Peruvian governmental organizations had jurisdiction over access, design and construction issues:

• OSINERG (Organismo Supervisor de la Inversión en Energía) has the authority to supervise, sanction and control petroleum industry personnel to ensure the adequate conservation of the environment.
• CONAM (Consejo Nacional del Ambiente – The National Environmental Council) oversees Peruvian environmental policy, including environmental quality and protection criteria, as well as guidelines for development environmental impact studies.
• INRENA (Instituto Nacional de Recursos Naturales – National Institute of Natural Resources) establishes and enforces the conservation of natural resources and serves as the final authority in charge of protected areas and natural resource management.
• DIGESA (Dirección General de Salud Ambiental – General Directorate of Environmental Health) enforces preventive and controlling measures regarding environmental contaminations that may have human health consequences.
• The Technical Secretariat of CONAPA (Secretaría Técnica de CONAPA Ministerio de la Presidencia) promotes, coordinates, manages, supervises and evaluates policies, plans, programs and projects for the development of rural and native communities.
• INC (Instituto Nacional de Cultura – The National Institute of Culture) is responsible for the preservation of cultural heritage, including archaeological sites.

The project team, led by Pluspetrol and with active participation by Paragon, worked with these organizations – predominantly OSINERG and INRENA – to participate in public hearings that provided early awareness of the facilities being built, and to review the regulations under each agency's jurisdiction, to either comply with or modify the regulations. Such modifications were sometimes necessary, since many of these regulations were based on US standards that had been modified after the Peruvian regulations were enacted. In many of these cases, the Peruvian regulations were modified to meet present international standards.

CLIMATIC CHALLENGES

The Peruvian Amazon rainforest climate makes any type of construction extremely difficult:

• The temperature during summer can reach 100°F, with 99% humidity.
• The area receives an average of 62 in. of rain per year, with intensities as high as 6 in. per hour.
• The rainy season lasts from November through April, with the dry season extending from May through October.
• The Urubamba River changes in elevation by as much as 17 m between the dry and the rainy seasons.

Pipeline construction during the rainy season is impractical; any construction work must be performed from May through October. Work not completed by the end of this period must be postponed until the start of the following dry season.

ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

The two fields, San Martin and Cashiriari, are located in an 1,800-km² area of the Amazonian rainforest of the Lower Urubamba River. This area lies between two zones internationally recognized for high biodiversity – the Apurímac Reserve and Manu National Park.

Roughly 1,200 km², or two-thirds of the Camisea development, including three of the production well locations, fall within the lands reserved by the State for the benefit of the Nahua-Kugapakori Nomadic Groups.

Only around 10 km² was actually cleared and graded to install the living quarters, airstrip and operating facilities and to clear a right-of-way for the flowlines. This area amounts to less than 3% of the total reserve area of 44,400 km². The largest portion of the cleared area – the flowline right-of-way (ROW) – was revegetated with native plant species to return it, as much as possible, to its original state. This effort is important for obvious environmental reasons, and to prevent the ROW from becoming an access channel for outsiders to penetrate deep into the jungle for logging or trading.

TRANSPORTATION

Transportation of personnel, equipment and materials to the construction site presented significant logistical difficulties. There are no roads to the site, so transportation was by air or river.

At the beginning of the project, the closest landing strip was located at the Nuevo Mundo construction camp, built by Shell during its exploration work and located on the Urubamba River 25 km north of the work site.

During the early days of construction, the only way to bring workers in was by helicopter or boat. All personnel working at Camisea traveled first by plane from Lima to Nuevo Mundo and then from Nuevo Mundo to the site by helicopter or by boat along the Urubamba River.

Materials and equipment that required prompt delivery were transported by plane, within certain weight limits. Otherwise, the bulk of equipment and materials was transported by river.

Heavy equipment was transported by large vessels during the rainy season, when river levels were high enough to accommodate the draft of these vessels. The Urubamba River was deep enough to support barge transportation. Most of the equipment was delivered to the wellsites and the Malvinas plant via barge, initially in ocean freighters up the Amazon River, and then on smaller barges up the Urubamba. River transportation during the dry season was limited to lighter equipment that could be moved in smaller vessels. This condition required the contractors to mobilize the heavy equipment very early during the rainy season. Equipment that was no longer needed could not be demobilized until the following rainy season, when the river levels rose again.

UPSTREAM AND DOWNSTREAM PROJECTS

In May 1999, through the Special Committee for the Camisea Project (CECAM), the Peruvian government issued separate bid packages for two Camisea license agreements, known today as the upstream and downstream project components.

The upstream components include:

• Exploration and exploitation of the Camisea gas deposits
• Construction and operation of a 450-MMcfd NGL-extraction plant on the east bank of the Urubamba River in Camisea (the Malvinas Plant)
• Construction and operation of a 55,000-bpd NGL-fractionation plant on the Pacific coast, 250 km south of Lima (the Pisco Fractionation Plant), along with an associated marine loading terminal 3 km offshore.

The downstream components include construction and operation of:

• A 714-km pipeline to transport gas from the Malvinas Plant to Lima
• A gas distribution system to industrial consumers throughout Lima
• A 540-km pipeline to transport the NGL from the Malvinas Extraction Plant to the Pisco Fractionation Plant.

In December 2000, the Peruvian government signed contracts with two multinational consortia – the Upstream Consortium and the Downstream Consortium – and required the completion of facilities and the beginning of operation within 44 months of contract execution – by August 9, 2004.

Pluspetrol Peru Corp. of Argentina leads the upstream consortium, which also includes Hunt Oil (USA), SK Corp. (South Korea) and Tecpetrol (Argentina). Tecgas (Argentina) leads the downstream consortium, which includes Pluspetrol, Hunt Oil, SK Corp., Sonatrach (Algeria) and, initially, Graña y Montero (Peru). The downstream consortium selected Tractebel to be the builder and operator of the gas distribution system.

The total Camisea investment was estimated at just over US$1.5 billion dollars:

• $670 million for the upstream components
• $811 million for the main downstream components
• $50 million for the distribution component.

THE UPSTREAM PROJECT

In May 2001, Pluspetrol contracted Paragon Engineering Services, Inc., to provide the following services for the upstream project:

• Basic design of the well sites, the gas gathering and injection system flowlines, the Malvinas Extraction Plant, the Pisco Fractionation Plant and the marine LPG loading terminal
• Comprehensive “owner's engineer” services for the detailed design and construction of the facilities.

THE FLOWLINE EFFORT

Work associated with the flowline portion of the upstream project presented numerous challenges to Pluspetrol and Paragon due to environmental and social considerations, as well as the difficult terrain involved.

The flowlines included a gathering system that transports rich gas from the SM-1 and SM-3 wells to the Malvinas Extraction Plant, where it is treated and the LPG is extracted, as well as a gas-injection system that flows in the opposite direction, Figs. 1 and 2. Any lean gas that exceeds the sales demand in Lima is transported from the Malvinas plant back to the SM-3 well site to be re-injected.

Fig. 1. San Martín well site in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. Installing flowlines between/ from the well sites to/ from the Malvinas Gas Plant presented numerous challenges.

Fig. 2. Malvinas gas plant in Peru. Transportation of piping and equipment to this site was restricted by a rainy season weather window and the absence of roads.

Specific flowline components include:

• A 20-in., 26-km gathering pipeline with a maximum allowable operating pressure (MAOP) of 1,800 psig. This line extends from the SM-1 well site to the Malvinas Plant through an intermediate site designated the Junction Node.
• Injection systems, which comprise a 16-in., 20-km pipeline from the plant to the Junction Node; two 10-in., 6-km pipelines from the Junction Node to SM-1; and two 9.5-km lines (14 in. and 10 in.) from SM-1 to SM-3.
• A 4-in. diesel line from the plant to the drill sites, to provide fuel for rigs during drilling. (This line is now abandoned-in-place.) The Malvinas storage facility, which initially supplied the rig fuel, is now used for plant-fuel storage.
• A fiber optic cable to provide data communication between the well sites and the Malvinas plant. This was installed at the same time and along the same right-of-way (ROW) as the flowlines.

Key design challenges. The overriding challenge of the flowline effort involved meeting environmental and social requirements while producing a workable design.

      Hilly terrain. The lines had to be routed over a highly uneven terrain with substantial elevation changes. The final route, although very hilly, was selected to meet the following goals:

• Minimizing elevation differences, thereby reducing the amount of cuts required in grading the ROW
• Minimizing the slopes to reduce the overall impact of pipeline construction in the rain forest.

Given this “sawtooth” profile, concerns surfaced that large amounts of liquids would accumulate in the low points of the line, impeding the flow and causing slugging. Controlling these differences in elevation became paramount to ensure both satisfactory construction and operation of the flowlines.

      Minimizing impacts on indigenous peoples. Pluspetrol conducted a survey to identify areas of the jungle where indigenous people live, farm and hunt, directly contacting the indigenous communities to identify these areas on maps, which were used to design a flowline system that intelligently balanced the needs of all parties. In all, about 20 areas were identified. In the few cases where avoiding a specific area was not possible due to extreme construction or operational hazards, Pluspetrol negotiated with the communities to reach agreements that allowed access while minimizing disruptions as much as possible.

      Clearing the right-of-way. Environmental regulations limited the ROW width to 18 m. The area to be cleared was occupied by closely spaced trees. For the most part, the trees were young and small in diameter (20 cm or less), since illegal logging operations in previous years had removed most of the older, larger trees.

The trees had to be removed prior to the clearing and grading operation. Inspectors were required to inspect the section of the route to be cleared during the day, and log all information regarding the removal of trees over 20 cm in diameter.

The topsoil along the route was very thin. The procedure for clearing and grading required that, whenever feasible, the organic topsoil be segregated from the rest of the soil to be removed during this operation. The inspectors identified areas where the material cut could be accumulated to ensure proper drainage and minimum soil erosion.

Detour roads (5 m wide) around sections of the ROW on steep slopes were built to ensure the safe movement of vehicles and construction equipment.

      Trenching. Since, even during the dry season, it does rain, trenching operations were required to follow closely behind the welding, x-ray and joint-coating efforts, while minimizing the amounts of open trench and excavated soil deposits. Temporary erosion control structures were constructed at open-cut creek crossings.

      Water crossings. With the exception of the Camisea River crossing, which was achieved via directional drilling, all other buried water crossings were built using the open-cut method. However, some creeks were so deep and their banks so steep that installing the crossing by the open-cut method would have required significant clearing width and excessive soil movement. In these cases, the pipe was suspended over the water (with intermediate supports) if it could be determined that the crossing's elevation would be above the flood-stage water level.

      Erosion control and slope protection. Dikes of cement-sand bags encircling the pipes were built inside each trench with a slope of more than 10% at the bottom.

In some cases, the terrain was so steep that rainwater had to be diverted away from the pipeline route to protect the line and ensure it would remain buried. Berms were installed transverse to the pipeline to direct the water away from the route and into flood control channels.

      Revegetation. Each year, in advance of the rainy season, the project team revegetated the ROW by planting quick-growing plants that would protect against soil erosion for a single season. After construction was complete, permanent revegetation was accomplished by planting a full variety of native species and allowing the rainforest to repopulate itself.

      Securing the right-of-way. Although the ROW remained open during the project, access was carefully controlled, both during construction and during times when no crews were working. At the end of construction, Pluspetrol continued its efforts to limit access.

      Demobilization. Upon leaving the work location at the end of the project, contractors had to comply with strict requirements to remove all equipment, material and parts, and dispose of any trash, oil and grease properly.

      The net result. Construction of the Camisea flowlines was demanding because of technical, weather, environmental, isolation and terrain challenges. These constraints were carefully studied during the design phase, and intensely monitored throughout the construction and startup phases. Both phases were completed successfully. The flowlines started smoothly and are operating well. 

THE AUTHORS
	Watson Falzarano is pipeline project manager for Paragon Engineering Services on the Camisea project. He has more than 25 years of experience as a project engineer and project manager for the design, construction, commissioning and startup of natural gas, LPG and CO 2 pipelines, gas compressor and LPG pumping stations, LPG storage facilities, LPG terminals, and gas treating and gas processing plants. He earned a BSc in civil engineering from the University of Puerto Rico.
	Raul Gaurisse is pipeline project manager for Pluspetrol Peru Corp., S.A., on the Camisea Project. He has more than 18 years of experience as a project engineer and project manager for the construction, commissioning and start-up of natural gas treatment plants, gas processing plants, gas compression stations and refinery units. He earned a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Buenos Aires.