The Federal Court of Appeals of Mar del Plata authorized this Friday the oil exploration project in the Argentine Sea by annulling the precautionary measure that suspended the operations that will be carried out 300 kilometers from the Buenos Aires coast, and that had been opportunely appealed by the national government.
According to the ruling accepted by Télam, the court, at the same time, ordered to make a “new Environmental Impact Statement” that it turns out complementary to the one already approved by the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development to give continuity to the Offshore Seismic Acquisition Campaign, according to the ruling known this Friday afternoon.
In the brief, the court ordered to annul the precautionary measure after rejecting the recall last March, as well as “declare abstract the treatment of the appeals against the suspensive effect granted by the a quo to the appeals filed against the precautionary measure.”
The ruling is signed by Chamber judges Alejandro Tazza and Eduardo Jiménez, and Chamber secretary Walter Pelle.
Likewise, it ordered that -in order to give continuity to the activities of the offshore seismic prospecting project- the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development must issue a new environmental impact statement complementary to the one already issued.
after giving participation to the National Parks Administration, provided that participatory interventions organized at the municipal and national levels be valued, and include the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in the control and supervision of compliance with the Environmental Impact Statement and its corresponding Environmental Management Plan.
Also, ordered that they be included, analyzed and weighed “in aggregate form, spatial scope and time limitss in which the present project is put into practice, considering the direct, indirect, cumulative and synergistic impacts”.
In its recitals, the Mar del Plata court highlighted that “environmental impact assessments turn out to be, by essence, tools of a preventive nature, with the capacity to guide human actions, allowing, based on their conclusions, that environmental protection be integrated with the policies growth and development”.
In another aspect, he pointed out that “it is clear that the present, more than a project or economic enterprise, turns out to be, and in fact implies the implementation of policies, plans and an energy development program, here it could also have been used, the so-called “Strategic Environmental Assessment”.
The precautionary measure that stopped the project
At the beginning of February, the head of Federal Court 2, Santiago Martín, made room for the precautionary measure promoted by the mayor of General Pueyrredón (JxC), Guillermo Montenegro and environmental organizations ordered the suspension of the approval of the oil exploration project which went through a Public Hearing instance in 2021.
In this way, the magistrate determined to stop exploration tasks by the Norwegian state oil company Equinor at sea looking for oil reservesuntil the underlying issue is resolved.
The judicial resolution is part of the presentations of the Mayor of Montenegro, the Organization of Self-Convened Environmentalists and an individual against the decision of the national Government to enable the offshore seismic acquisition campaign in the CAN 108, CAN 100 and CAN 114 areas of the North Argentina Basin. , arranged by Resolution 436/2021 of the Ministry of the Environment.
The Government on December 30 had granted the Environmental Impact Statement and issued Resolution 436/21, which authorized the oil companies to carry out seismic exploration studies in three offshore areas located more than 300 kilometers from the Buenos Aires coast.
The exploration task of the seabed is going to be carried forward by the consortium of companies headed by Equinor in partnership with the national oil company YPF and the Anglo-Dutch company Shell, in three of the 18 blocks awarded in 2019 for which the successful bidders committed investments of almost US$800 million.
Today, in the Deliberative Council of General Pueyrredon’s party, the consultative public hearing on the project concluded, after five days of exhibitions which, in short, made it possible to gather majority support for the initiative from different sectors.
