For the last two years, the Venezuelan Observatory on Political Ecology has been monitoring the reports of oil spills in the country. The resulting data presented below is based on the systematization of claims and events published on social[1] and digital media. In this sense, the figures shown below do not reflect the real number of incidents as they only include specific cases that have been made public through these means. As the Observatory highlighted in the 2021 socio-environmental report, this effort of systematization arises as a result of the absence of official statistics by the State oil company PDVSA since 2016.
More spills than in 2021
According to the organization’s records, 86 oil spills were reported in Venezuela between January and December 2022. This figure includes gas leaks in pipelines owned by PDVSA. 77 spills had already been registered by November 30, 2022, while only 73 incidents had been recorded for the same period in 2021, indicating an increase in the number of reports of spills in 2022 from the previous year.
Graph 1 shows the number of spills reported per month. An average of 7 spills every month is maintained.
Spills were reported in the states of Anzoátegui, Carabobo, Delta Amacuro, Falcón, Monagas, Portuguesa and Zulia. Graph 2 shows that spills in the states of Anzoátegui, Falcón and Zulia were recurrent throughout the year.
Socio-environmental impacts
Oil spills in Venezuela constitute a serious socio-environmental problem that affects both marine and land ecosystems. The agricultural sector is also impacted by the incidents, which cause the loss of crops and livestock. Likewise, fishermen and coastal communities bear the consequences of the spills without a response from the State agencies to an environmental tragedy that takes place every day.
[1] Especially the reports with satellite images by researcher Eduardo Klein, who monitors gas leaks and oil spills from the Venezuelan oil industry
Translated by José Rafael Medina
