Whistleblower reveals Colombia oil giant’s ‘awful’ pollution

Colombian energy giant Ecopetrol has polluted hundreds of sites with oil, including water sources and biodiverse wetlands, the BBC World Service has found.

Data leaked by a former employee reveals more than 800 records of these sites from 1989 to 2018, and indicates the company had failed to report about a fifth of them.

The BBC has also obtained figures showing the company has spilled oil hundreds of times since then.

Ecopetrol says it complies fully with Colombian law and has industry-leading practices on sustainability.

The company’s main refinery is in Barrancabermeja, 260km (162 miles) north of the Colombian capital Bogota.

The huge cluster of processing plants, industrial chimneys and storage tanks stretches for close to 2km (1.2 miles) along the banks of Colombia’s longest river, the Magdalena – a water source for millions of people.

Members of the fishing community there believe oil pollution is affecting wildlife in the river.

The wider area is home to endangered river turtles, manatees and spider monkeys, and is part of a species-rich hotspot in one of the world’s most biodiverse countries. Nearby wetlands include a protected habitat for jaguars.

When the BBC visited last June, families were fishing together in waterways criss-crossed by oil pipelines.

One local said some of the fish they caught released the pungent smell of crude oil as they were cooked.

In places, a film with iridescent swirls could be seen on the surface of the water – a distinctive signature of contamination by oil.

A fisherman dived down in the water and brought up a clump of vegetation caked in dark slime.

Pointing to it, Yuly Velásquez, president of Fedepesan, a federation of fishing organisations in the region, said: “This is all grease and waste that comes directly from the Ecopetrol refinery.”

Ecopetrol, which is 88% owned by the Colombian state and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, rejects the fishers’ claims that it is polluting the water.

In response to the BBC’s questions, it says it has efficient wastewater treatment systems and effective contingency plans for oil spills.

Andrés Olarte, the whistleblower who has shared the company’s data, says pollution by the firm dates back many years.

He joined Ecopetrol in 2017 and started working as an adviser to the CEO. He says he soon realised “something was wrong”.

Mr Olarte says he challenged managers about what he describes as “awful” pollution data, but was rebuffed with reactions such as: “Why are you asking these questions? You’re not getting what this job is about.”

He left the company in 2019, and shared a large amount of company data with US-based NGO the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and later with the BBC. The BBC has verified it came from Ecopetrol’s servers.