Despite complaints about contamination, Energas increases its production in Puerto Escondido

Despite complaints about contamination, Energas increases its production in Puerto Escondido

The exploitation of the gas fields of Puerto Escondido, in Santa Cruz del Norte (Mayabeque), is going at full speed. Energas, the joint venture managed by the Canadian company Sherritt and the Cuban state company Cupet, in addition to Unión Eléctrica, reported this Tuesday that some 200,000 cubic meters of gas are being extracted per day and that production is expected to double in the coming months.

However, pollution, gas leaks and expansion of facilities have been devastating for the town. Interviewees last march by 14ymedio, the inhabitants of Puerto Escondido declared that the air is already unbreathable and that the plague has been poisoning the local flora.

The price that residents have to pay for Energas’ activity seems excessive if one considers the opinion of its directors, who have recognized that they do not achieve “high production.” The associated power plant The Puerto Escondido gas wells only benefit from an additional 30 megawatts, which come from gas exploitation in the area, explained Eduardo Fernández, facility manager.

In the year 2000, the Cuban government discovered and decided to exploit “considerable quantities of gas” in Puerto Escondido, recalls José Enrique Alegría, director of the Occidente Oil Drilling and Extraction company. The town had “oil wells that, after flooding, were used to extract this natural resource,” the manager told the official press.

The Puerto Escondido 14 well was then drilled and, over the years, the Cupet-Unión Eléctrica-Sherrit coalition has drilled other points on the ground. “Now we are drilling the Puerto Escondido 200 well, which will further increase power generation,” Alegría promised. The facility, according to the manager, will start operating in June.

The managers of Energas avoid alluding to the environmental damage that they are causing, but they do not delay in celebrating the work of their company in terms of “rational use”

The directors of Energas avoid alluding to the environmental damage that they are causing, but they do not delay in celebrating the work of their company in terms of “rational use of gas.” “Right now, saving fuel is important in cooking food, since the same fuel that is used for power generation is also used for cooking,” they point out.

At the Puerto Escondido plant, the thermal energy of the gas is converted into electricity by means of two turbines: one for gas and the other for steam. According to Alegría, a “provisional collection center” was also built in the town to store the gas, since the growing production had exceeded the capacities of the one that existed before.

Exploit at all costs this “place deep under the earth”, as qualifies the official press the exploitation of Puerto Escondido, supposes the installation of “numerous pipes that enter and leave the ground”. Not even the report he dedicated to her cubadebate The plant hides the impact that the “chimney-shaped towers” are having on the local environment, through which “gases are spit out at extremely high temperatures after the raw material is processed inside the turbine.”

However, the text recognized that since 1990 gas emissions had been felt in the not-so-distant Varadero, in Matanzas, and were beginning to bother tourists. “The western north coast, rich in oil fields, put the nascent tourist industry in the area at risk,” the newspaper recalled.

Energas was born in that context, under the direct supervision of Fidel Castro, who inaugurated one of his first plants in the year 2000. At that time, Sherritt also entered the game, the Canadian mining company with which Cuba contracted a million-dollar debt that now pay with facilities for the extraction of nickel and cobalt in Moa, Holguin.

The balance of Energas, after more than twenty years, is to ensure that they produce “the cheapest electricity in the country”, thanks to the consumption of natural gas in deposits in Havana, Mayabeque and Matanzas.

In any case, the environmental deterioration of the area matters little to the specialists, managers and workers interviewed by Cubadebate, that at no time do they state that they share the alarm of the neighbors or of the readers of their reports on Energas.

“The constant gas leak must be completely eliminated,” commented one of the neighbors, at the bottom of the text. “The smell is perceived in the environment. It is not from now, it has been like this for years, and I do not see any action. Review the issue,” he implored the authorities.

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