BP settles $28 million Ocensa pipeline suit

By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Aug. 9 -- BP PLC recently agreed to pay an undisclosed settlement to 1,000 Colombian farmers who claimed their livelihoods were endangered by construction of the Ocensa pipeline, Colombia's largest, laid in the 1990s through part of the state of Antioquia.

A lawsuit for $28 million, which was to have been brought against BP in London's high court, alleged that laying that pipeline ruined farming, including raising livestock and fish farming, and gold mining in that area. The farmers also claimed they were harassed by far-right paramilitary groups because of their opposition to the pipeline. One community leader was killed in an act blamed on the paramilitaries, and a lawyer who represented the farmers fled Colombia after she discovered she was on a paramilitary hit list. She was granted political asylum in Britain in 2002.

The farmers never accused BP of working with the paramilitaries. But their opposition to the pipeline put them in the paramilitaries' sights, their lawyers said.

BP and lawyers for the farmers said in a joint statement that the "amicable" settlement established a trust fund by the BP Colombia subsidiary to help farmers deal with environmental management, business development, and other issues.

Lawyers for the farmers said BP negotiated the settlement after publication of two reports commissioned by environmental experts from Colombia's National University detailing the extent of the damage to the zone.

The 100,000 b/d Ocensa oil line extends from BP's Cusiana and Cupiagua oil fields in the eastern plains to the Caribbean coast.