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Reporter's Notebook: Stephen Peacock

Colombia's Ecopetrol Gets Yet Another Corporate Welfare Check From US

Posted by Stephen Peacock - January 24, 2007 at 9:41 am
For the second time this month, the U.S. Trade & Development Agency (USTDA) has figured out a way to siphon money from the U.S. Treasury and transfer it to Ecopetrol of Colombia. Whereas the previous handout (see Narcosphere Jan. 3) was geared toward the modernization of the thriving company's Barrancabermeja refinery complex, the most recently discovered scheme provides yet another smokescreen for the fleecing of U.S. taxpayers: Colombian oil pipeline security. Ecopetrol is getting the handout via the Hydrocarbon Pipeline Safety and Security Project Feasibility Study project at USTDA, which currently is recruiting potential contractors -- that is, contractors of U.S. origin only -- to carry out the initiative.

The purported goal of the endeavor is to weigh the costs and benefits of improving "the safety, security, and integrity of Colombia's hydrocarbon pipeline system, acccording to a presolicitation notice dated Jan. 19 discovered during a routine search of the FedBizOpps contracting database.

"Ecopetrol S.A. seeks to improve safety and security and reduce losses of crude oil and petroleum products in the hydrocarbon pipeline system through a program of strategic investments," the document says.

As this writer pointed out in the Jan. 3 Narcosphere report, Ecopetrol in 2006 had planned to spend -- on its own -- $339 million for exploration initiatives, $675 million for production, $256 million for petrochemical and refinery operations, $66 million for transportation, and $69 million for unspecified "corporate" expenses. These USTDA programs are therefore nothing less than corporate welfare checks that benefit the Bush Administration's oil-industry friends in South America and back in the "homeland."

A pickpocket is a pickpocket, regardless of whether the thief gets away with five cents or $500,000, as in this current pilferage.

The above link to the USTDA planning document is scheduled to be active until March 6, when the document will be archived under standard operating procedures of FedBizOpps.

About Stephen Peacock

Biography
I'm a former Washington, DC, journalist (1998-2003) who most recently worked for Communications Daily and Washington Internet Daily (WID), investigative newsletters that cover the telecommunications, broadcast and Internet industries. Following the 9/11 attacks, my news beat expanded beyond Capitol Hill telecom/TV/IT policy and began to include technology-policy coverage at the Pentagon and Dept. of Homeland Security. I've written over a thousand articles about government and industry affairs, and I'm pleased to say that I was the reporter who broke the story about the Total Information Awareness surveillance/data-collection initiative of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. I've written articles for publications including NACLA Report on the Americas, Drug Enforcement Report, Corrections Journal, SoJo Mail (Sojourners), and the Tampa Tribune. I've also written a memoir about my former career as a plainclothes security officer of the Helmsley Palace hotel in New York City, Hotel Dick: Harlots, Starlets, Thieves & Sleaze. I look forward to contributing to the fine work being done here at NarcoSphere.

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Comments

Corporate welfare or war profiteering?

Submitted January 26, 2007 - 12:50 am by Dan Feder
This is a great example of business as usual in the Colombian civil war. It’s not spelled out here, but that “history of problems” that the Colombian pipeline system has is the armed conflict between guerrillas and the government, with rebels often targeting the pipeline. So while the procurement document is so full of euphemisms that it sounds like nothing more than oil industry business jargon, it’s actually an invitation for more corporate participation in the war.

One man’s conflict and suffering are another man’s “business opportunity.”

and more...

Submitted January 26, 2007 - 3:00 pm by Teofilo Ballve
One could imagine the assessment concluding that more mercenaries (currently capped at 600) and U.S. troops (capped at 800) are needed to protect pipelines from bombings by guerrillas. Along the Caño-Limón pipeline this would make a complicated situation worse: not only is the local U.S.-backed and -trained Colombian military fighting the guerrillas, but the FARC and ELN are themselves fighting each other over who gets to levy "taxes" (vacunas) on oil companies.

One could also point out a blatant contradiction: following free-market orthodoxy, the Colombian government has proposed to privatize 20% of Ecopetrol to get more of the "big-bad" government out of the oil business and draw private investment (with U.S. oil companies eagerly looking on). And yet, these free-marketeers see no problem with non-free-market government subsidies such as the one outlined above.

Pipeline Program Futile

Submitted January 26, 2007 - 2:13 pm by Sean Donahue
In a {July, 2002 report http://www.amazonwatch.org/amazon/CO/uwa/reports/p lancol_0207_wfp_arauca.pdf], Witness for Peace quotes Brigadier General Carlos Lemus Pedraza as saying that his unit, the Colombian Army's 18th Brigade, would need to station a soldier every 3 feet along the entire length of the Cano Limon-Covenas pipeline in order to adequately protect it from guerilla attacks.

That pipeline is jointly run by ECOPETROL and Occidental Petroleum.

So a pipeline safety and security study seems a complete waste of money.

Its also important to note that this U.S. aid is coming at a time when ECOPETROL is undergoing significant privatization, which will, as Peacock suggests, greatly benefit U.S. oil companies.

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