Pluspetrol LPG Plant Survives and Provides Shelter After 8.0 Magnitude Earthquake Devastates Pisco, Peru

Business Wire, Feb 20, 2008

Pluspetrol's rapid emergency response, ITP InTerPipe's technology and AMEC Paragon's engineering expertise prove crucial

HOUSTON -- When an earthquake measuring 8.0 on the Richter Scale rocked the central coast of Peru for two minutes on August 15, 2007, followed by aftershocks measuring up to 6.5, the city of Pisco was almost shaken to pieces. Remarkably, Pluspetrol's nearby liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) plant and terminal, including the subsea cryogenic pipeline that joins them, withstood the quake. Contributing to this remarkable success were ITP InTerPipe's (ITP) pipeline technology and the engineering expertise of AMEC Paragon, a subsidiary of AMEC, the international engineering and project management company.

The plant is part of the Pluspetrol-operated Camisea development, which produces and transports natural gas and natural gas liquids originating in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest.

More than 150 employees and their families found shelter at the Pisco plant after the disaster. Months later, 30 people continue to live temporarily at the plant.

On the heels of the catastrophic hit, Pluspetrol voluntarily shut down the plant briefly to perform safety and operational inspections. The plant suffered negligible damage, primarily in the safety latches of the offshore terminal loading arms. With the loading arms out of service until mid-December, the company found alternate means of loading tankers to resume normal operations only four days after the earthquake.

A buried subsea pipeline using ITP's proprietary pipe-in-pipe technology, which features a robust pipeline integrity monitoring system, transports the cryogenic liquids produced at the plant to an offshore marine terminal. The monitoring system allowed Pluspetrol to quickly check the integrity of the pipeline to confirm it had not been damaged and could return to normal operations immediately.

Pluspetrol contracted AMEC Paragon in May 2001 to serve as the owner's engineer for the Pisco plant and other key elements of the Camisea project, providing project management, front-end engineering design (FEED) and logistics planning services. First gas was produced in 2004.

Eliseo Bouza, Pluspetrol's Camisea operations manager, said, "The facts are simple. The reason the facilities on and offshore could resist this earthquake is a credit to AMEC Paragon and ITP. Because of this front-end planning and expertise, we could focus on emergency response and providing humanitarian aid to the area."

AMEC Paragon President Terri Ivers said, "Design and construction of a robust facility is just one piece of the puzzle. The plant's survival owes much to Pluspetrol's ongoing operations efforts, emergency response plans and well-trained personnel."

Pluspetrol dedicated all logistics resources at its disposal to help the devastated community and surrounding areas. These efforts included dispatching subcontracted helicopters to assist in evacuation and search and recovery efforts, using heavy machinery to clear rubble and debris from the community, which had 80 percent of its buildings destroyed, and delivering electric power, water and more than 6,000 meals to the community.

"One of the most important lessons we learned from this natural disaster was the importance of training and discipline for personnel to respond rapidly to emergencies," Bouza said.

According to Tom Glagola, AMEC Paragon's project director, the plant was strategically placed onshore one kilometer from the shoreline, beyond the 100-year estimated tsunami run-up wave line. Based on early feasibility studies, the team applied conservative design safety parameters for the foundations, considering the Peruvian coast was prone to earthquakes and tsunamis.

"Of all the sites selected for consideration, we determined the Pisco locale was an ideal plant site because it was the most sheltered area in the entire regional coastal zone and because the soil was suitable for robust foundations," Glagola said. "Since the site is adjacent to the Paracas Peninsula World Heritage Site, we also took great care to eliminate impacts on the local environment."

Glagola added that the plant was designed to resist accelerations of up to 0.6G. The earthquake generated approximately 0.2G.

Christophe Bouchaud-Ayral, president director general of ITP InTerPipe, S.A., said, "Clearly, the dramatic August events in Pisco have demonstrated that Pluspetrol has built and continues to operate a world-class facility. Pluspetrol should be commended for its corporate responsibility to both the community and the environment. We are proud to have worked in Peru for the Camisea project and to have ITP's LPG pipe-in-pipe technology selected for its reliability and performance."

How is Pisco Today?

In Pisco and surrounding areas, located approximately 160 miles southeast of Lima, Peru, the earthquake killed more than 500 people and injured more than a thousand others. Foreign aid organizations have reported that the emergency phase is over and basic needs are being met, but significant restoration work continues.