The Caño Limón oilfield is an

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

crude oil in

Arauca Department Arauca () is a department of Eastern Colombia located in the extreme north of the Orinoco Basin of Colombia (the Llanos Orientales), bordering Venezuela. The southern boundary of Arauca is formed by the Casanare and Meta Rivers, separating ...

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

. It is Colombia's second-largest oil field.

History

The Caño Limón oilfield was discovered in July 1983 by

Occidental Petroleum Occidental Petroleum Corporation (often abbreviated Oxy in reference to its ticker symbol and logo) is an American company engaged in hydrocarbon exploration in the United States, and the Middle East as well as petrochemical manufacturing in the ...

. Oil extraction operations began in 1986.

Geology

The Llanos basin is located east of the Eastern Cordillera (Andes) in Colombia. The bulk of the oil is found in deltaic sands of

Eocene The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene' ...

Mirador and the

Upper Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretaceous Period is divided in the geologic time scale. Rock strata from this epoch form the Upper Cretaceous Series. The Cretaceous is named after ''creta'', the ...

formation. The average

API gravity The American Petroleum Institute gravity, or API gravity, is a measure of how heavy or light a petroleum liquid is compared to water: if its API gravity is greater than 10, it is lighter and floats on water; if less than 10, it is heavier and sinks ...

of oil is 29.5°.

Production

The oil field is jointly owned by the state oil firm

Ecopetrol Ecopetrol, formerly known as Empresa Colombiana de Petróleos S.A. ( en, Colombian Petroleum Co.) is the largest and primary petroleum company in Colombia. As a result of its continuous growth, Ecopetrol forms part of the Fortune Global 500 and w ...

, and Occidental Petroleum. The produced crude oil is transported by the Caño Limón – Coveñas pipeline to Colombia's

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

coastline.

Environmental issues

The National Institute of Renewable Natural Resources and Environment repeatedly criticized the operation. In 1988, it found that the operators had taken inadequate steps to prevent environmental damage. Later in 1992, it conducted water sampling studies that found high concentrations of heavy metals and

polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons A polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) is a class of organic compounds that is composed of multiple aromatic rings. The simplest representative is naphthalene, having two aromatic rings and the three-ring compounds anthracene and phenanthrene. P ...

. It found that "because of the polluting

effluents Effluent is wastewater from sewers or industrial outfalls that flows directly into surface waters either untreated or after being treated at a facility. The term has slightly different meanings in certain contexts, and may contain various polluta ...

from Caño Limón, the receiving rivers and lakes are no longer fit for human consumption."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cano Limon Oilfield Oil fields of Colombia