Colombia seeks truce in oil workers strike

Reporting from Bogota â€”  The Colombian government is trying to broker peace between striking oil workers and their Canadian employer after violent clashes between protesters and police forced the closure of the country’s two most important oil fields.

Toronto-based Pacific Rubiales Energy shut down its Rubiales and Quifa oil fields in eastern Meta state Tuesday night after clashes left several workers injured and company equipment damaged. The two fields produce an average of 225,000 barrels of crude a day, or about one-quarter of the 953,000 barrels in daily output the country averaged in August.

Over the weekend, the government sent 300 anti-riot police to Puerto Gaitan, the biggest town in the rural area, to try to break up protesters’ blockades, which have prevented company vehicles from entering and leaving the oil fields. The Colombian National Police on Tuesday declared a curfew in the town.

Deputy Interior Minister Aurelio Iragorri told local news media that he would mediate a meeting Wednesday of labor union and company representatives. A similar attempt at negotiations was announced in July, after protests forced a similar shutdown. But blockades and clashes have continued sporadically since then.

In an interview, Rodolfo Vecino, president of the USO oil workers union, said 4,000 workers had joined the strike to protest working conditions, low pay and the company’s use of contract labor from outside the region. Protesters also want the reinstatement of 800 workers fired since July for taking part in protests.

Pacific Rubiales has maintained it is following Colombian labor laws and is treating employees fairly. It has blamed the disturbances on politically motivated agitators acting ahead of October local elections. The company has called on authorities to restore order.

In an emailed statement to The Times, Pacific Rubiales President Jose Francisco Arata said production would begin ramping up slowly Wednesday, though he did not say how long the “gradual process� of restarting the two fields would take before full capacity is reached.

Pacific Rubiales is not the only target of protests. Earlier this month, another Canada-based company, Petrominerales, was forced to briefly halt production at two fields in neighboring Casanare state after residents blockaded roads to protest alleged pollution and heavy truck traffic on rural roads.

Colombia has experienced an oil boom in recent years as increasing numbers of oil companies have arrived to take advantage of improved security and relatively generous terms from the government. August production levels represent a 90% increase from the average monthly crude output during 2006.

Colombia’s exports to the U.S. in June, the last month for which statistics are available, averaged 309,000 barrels a day, or about 2.6% of total U.S. oil imports, making it the 10th-largest exporter of crude to the U.S.

But the rise in output has been accompanied by labor strife and residents’ protests. The conflicts may have been a factor in the Tuesday resignation of Carlos Rodado, the mining and energy minister. President Juan Manuel Santos is replacing him with economist Mauricio Cardenas, a former Cabinet member and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Attacks by leftist guerrillas against oil field workers are also on the rise. Through August, 39 oil field workers had been kidnapped by suspected rebels and criminal gangs this year, more than quadruple the nine abductions reported over the same eight months in 2010, according to local security consultant Orlando Hernandez.

Kraul is a special correspondent.

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