On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court declined to block a judgement against petroleum giant Chevron, filed by an Ecuadorean court, that demands the North American oil company pay damages of more than US$19bn. Chevron is accused of causing massive environmental damage in the Amazonian Lago Agrio region.

Texaco, which was bought by Chevron in 2001, operated in the small Andean country from 1964-92.

The trial has been on-going for eight years and has pitted Chevron against lawyers representing over 30,000 villagers from the affected area, many of whom are indigenous. The judgement, passed by an Ecuadorean trial court in February 2011, found that Chevron had “recklessly adopted sub-standard operational practises in Ecuador to cut production costs to the bare minimum, creating what experts believe could be the largest and most damaging oil-related disaster of all time.”

Accusations include dumping of at least 16 billion gallons of produced water into local water sources, use of unlined waste pits, frequent and devastating oil spills, flaring of gas, and destruction of documents, according to the Amazon Defense Coalition.

Chevron has stated that the charges are fraudulent, and has appealed numerous times to have the judgement blocked.

Spokesman for Chevron in Latin America, James Craig, stated “we will continue to defend against the plaintiff’s lawyers’ attempts to enforce the fraudulent Ecuadorean judgement, and to further expose their misconduct.”

The Ecuadorean judgement was blocked in March 2011 by New York judge Lewis A. Kaplan, however the decision was unanimously overturned in September of that year by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. The court affirmed that Lewis could not block foreign courts from enforcing the judgement.

Eighteen U.S. trial courts and four appellate courts have rejected or declined to consider Chevron’s campaign. The U.S. Supreme Court is the most recent to decline Chevron’s appeal.

“Chevron is running from justice while its toxic dumping continues to create an imminent danger of death to indigenous peoples in Ecuador,” said Aaron Marr Page, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez announced the creation of a fund to help victims of Saturday’s oil refinery explosion, whose death toll has now been revised up to 41, with a number still unaccounted for.

The fund of 100m bolívares (US$23m) has been put aside for reconstruction works, compensation for victims, pensions for widows and grants for the children of the deceased to study.

The fund will be jointly administered by the Venezuelan petroleum organisation, PDVSA, and the government of the state of Falcón.

Some 500 houses were affected by the explosion, with more than ten completely lost in the blast. Chávez also announced that for those who had lost their homes, 60 houses were ready for families, with a further 200 promised over the course of the next month.

The president went on to thank all the emergency workers and medical staff who had been working around the clock since the blast.

Firefighters continue to battle with the flames, although the situation is now said to be under control.

The refinery remains closed as a result of the damage caused by the blast, and that, combined with the closing of off-shore rigs in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of Tropical Storm Isaac, currently sweeping through the Caribbean, is likely to lead to a spike in the price of oil.

Venezuela experienced one of its worst oil industry related disasters in history as a huge explosion tore through the Amuay refinery on Saturday, killing 39 and injuring at least 80. Amongst those killed were 18 members of the national guard who had entered the refinery after the explosion in an attempt to rescue survivors.

The blast was so strong it threw balls of fire into the air, and ripped windows out of nearby homes, leaving the streets strewn with rubble and debris. A day after the blast, flames reaching over 30m into the air could still be seen. The explosion appears to have been caused by a natural gas leak.

President Hugo Chávez declared three days of national mourning, but said Amuay, Venezuela’s biggest refinery, and one of the biggest in the world, would be up and running again within two days, and assured the country would meet its international fuel commitments.

Amuay is part of the Paraguaná refinery complex based in Punto Fijo in western Venezuela, which also includes the Cardón refinery. Together, they process about 900,000 barrels of crude a day and 200,000 barrels of petrol.

Economy minister Hernán Lorenzino today re-iterated criticism of ratings agencies at a forum of the Council of the Americas; “Argentina: Economic and and political perspectives”. The meeting, which took place in the Alvear Hotel in Buenos Aires, was a summit coordinated by the Argentine Chamber of Commerce. Lorenzino spoke about the Argentine economy and denied the validity of negative credit agency indicators.

Lorenzino spoke out to assure the strength of Argentina’s economy which he claims is seeing “unprecedented growth”. He also highlighted the lack of neutrality and risk inherent in trusting ratings agencies and emphasised the fallibility of their judgements.

During the meeting between the Buenos Aires government and business leaders across the continent, Lorenzino said of ratings agencies,

“They calculate debt, but they can’t assure the value of their judgements. They only give opinions, he said”

Argentina’s risk factor according to ratings companies was better in 2001, directly before the financial crisis, than today.

According to Lorenzino “if that isn’t the best sign of something going badly, I don’t know what is.”

“For five years they’ve named us as a country in crisis and predicted something is about to blow up, but it never does” he said, going on to claim Argentina’s economy is seeing the strongest growth in its recent history.

He went on to say that rating agency diagnosis are subjective and also damaging, referring to the market reactions catalysed by rating agency judgements.

“These opinions are not neutral, they influence the value of the debt,” he said, adding “those affected by these diagnosis suffer problems they haven’t caused.”

Argentina has had a long history with credit ratings agencies, which reflected a highly inaccurate image of the Argentine economy prior to the dramatic 2001 recession.

The Forum will focus on business and the economy and a key section will deal with the nationalisation of oil company YPF. On Thursday 30^th August Manuel Galuccio, CEO of YPF will present his “100 day plan” to recuperate profits . Today, the results o the exploratory oil plan for Argentina will be unveiled.

Ecuadorians affected by the pollution from the oil company Chevron, are filing court actions to seize the company’s assets after it failed to pay US$19.04bn by last night’s deadline.

Last week the Court of Sucumbios in Ecuador ordered that the giant oil company pay the billion-dollar fine by midnight on 6th August for the environmental damage it caused to Ecuador’s rivers and forests.

“People in Ecuador are dying because of Chevron’s pollution and the company’s utter contempt for the rule of law,” said Paublo Fajardo, the lead Ecuadorian lawyer on the case according to Environmental Expert. “Chevron is going to have to be forced by courts to comply with its legal obligations.”

Ecuadorian Judge Liliana Ortiz signed an order on Friday forcing Chevron to deposit the funds needed to help clean up what experts consider one of the worst oil dumpings in the world. The area is almost the size of greater Buenos Aires. Already more than 16 billion gallons of toxic waste has been dumped into Amazon waterways.

With the deadline passed Chevron has made no move to pay the US$19bn and according to Petroleumworld they are going to appeal the decision.

A spokesperson for Chevron, James Craig, said the company will use all the legal means necessary to fight against, “this illegal order and, more generally, against the corrupt lawyers’ fraud and extortion scheme.”

Indigenous and farming communities originally filed the lawsuit in a US federal court in Manhattan, in 1993. The 19-year old case shifted to Ecuador in 2002 after Chevron approved the fairness of the Ecuadorian courts and promised to abide by any adverse judgments. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuit in the small town of Lago Agrio in the province of Sucumbois, Today, it is has more than 30 thousand plaintiffs.

“Our legal position is getting stronger by the day,” said Fajardo. “What is clear is that in the eyes of the law, Chevron becomes a fugitive from justice, at midnight on Monday, unless it pays the Ecuador judgment in full.”

Fajardo estimated Chevron’s remaining assets in Ecuador are worth roughly $200 million, including a $96 million court judgment the oil giant won recently in an international arbitration proceeding against Ecuador’s government. Ecuador is the third largest producer of oil in Latin America with reserves of US$6.5bn.

Chevron is already facing lawsuits in both Canada and Brazil.

It operated in Ecuador from 1964-1992 under the Texaco brand and according to Fajardo made US$30bn in profit.

According to evidence before the court, Chevron dumped the toxic waste into the Amazon waterways as a cost cutting measure. The company also destroyed documents relating to oil spills and tried to bribe or intimidate judges for a favourable outcome.

The evidence also found that five indigenous groups have been devastated by the contamination, which has caused an outbreak of cancer that has killed and threatens to kill thousands.

In light of the missed deadline, Fajardo said the plaintiffs would file additional asset seizures in the coming weeks in places like Venezuela, which contains Chevron’s largest investment in Latin America.

After securing political and economic relations with Angola through a series of diplomatic visits last month, Argentina is continuing to seek new commercial partners in the hopes of fostering more robust international trade relations with an eye on oil.

Elmar Mammadyarov, the Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, arrived today in Buenos Aires heading up a delegation of Azeri officials and businessmen.

The Foreign Minister is on a tour of Latin American with the intent of beginning, “future economic and political co-operation.”

Earlier this week, Mammadyarov was representing his country in Colombia and after meetings in Buenos Aires he will continue on to Uruguay and Peru before returning to Europe.

Azerbaijan’s visit to Argentina follows the country hosting an Argentine trade delegation earlier this month.

Argentine Domestic Trade Secretary, Guillermo Moreno, and Foreign Trade secretary, Beatriz Paglieri, went to Azerbaijan on the 1st July, heading a business delegation.

Azerbaijan has experienced a strong growth in recent years thanks to a boom in its hydrocarbons sector.

As with two recent visits to oil-rich Angola in Africa, the goal this time is to exploit new trade and investment opportunities.

The Argentine delegation included over 200 entrepreneurs from different sectors, as well the Governor of La Rioja, Luis Beder Herrera, and deputy-secretaries from the Ministry of Agriculture, and stayed in Baku until 4th July.

The Business Affairs representative at the Azerbaijan embassy in Buenos Aires, Ruslan Rzayev, said at the time, “We are highly interested in receiving Argentine companies to explore new possibilities of increasing bilateral trade.”

Argentina’s Foreign Minister, Héctor Timerman will receive Azerbaijani delegation consisting of officials and business representatives led by Elmar Mammadyarov in the San Martin Palace in Buenos Aires.

Azerbaijan, like Angola, is a developing economy with strong oil-resources, which Argentina is in need of due to a growing deficit.

The delegation will attend the Azerbaijan-Argentina business forum in the San Martin Palace this morning and in the afternoon bilateral working meetings will be held.

Mammadyarov is planned to hold working meetings with Argentine Ministers Héctor Timerman, Débora Giorgi, Norberto Yahuar, and Julio de Vido, secretaries of internal and external trade Guillermo Moreno and Beatriz Paglieri.

The Minister for Federal Planning, Public Investment and Services, Julio De Vido, announced that oil company YPF and Venezuela’s petroleum company PDVSA will be working together along with Argentina’s state-owned energy company Enarsa.

Governments of both countries agreed that the working alliance will open up opportunities to extract crude oil in Venezuela’s Faja del Orinoco as well as non-conventional resources in Vaca Muerta, an oil and gas field in Argentina’s Neuquén Province. It is hoped that the new plan will create a 60% increase in YPF’s oil refining capabilities over a five-year period.

YPF’s five-year plan contemplates the creation of 132 new mine shafts over 40 square kilometres in Vaca Muerta, with plans to produce 55 million barrels of oil, a number that they expect could be increased twofold in the following five-year period. PDVSA has shown interest in investing on exploration in Vaca Muerta.

Together, PDVSA and YPF also plan to expand the oil refinery in La Plata, invest US$1.5bn into a petrochemical complex in Bahía Blanca, and build a “regasification” plant for YPF and Enarsa.

The announcement of the collaborative union comes days before the official incorporation of Venezuela into regional trading bloc Mercosur, due to take place on 31st July.

“Mercosur will be a powerful economic bloc with Venezuela’s incorporation,” said Venezuela’s foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, on state television (VTV).

The government of Argentina will take legal action against Premier Oil after the British company announced that it would begin oil exploration activities off the disputed coast of the Falkland Islands.

Premier Oil has reportedly partnered with Rockhopper, another British oil company, and is expected to provide $USD 770 million to help build infrastructure that will enable the extraction of unknown quantities of oil and gas in the Sea Lion oil field.

The deposit is said to contain between 608 and 1280 million barrels of crude oil.

According to Terra News, the Embassy of Argentina in London sent a letter to Premier Oil stating that “oil exploration activities undertaken by the firm Rockhopper Exploration PLC on the continental shelf in Argentina are illegal, and Argentina has initiated the appropriate legal action.”

Argentina claims that other companies such as Argos Resources, Falkland Oil and Gas Limited (FOGL), Borders & Southern Petroleum and Desire Petroleum are also involved in ¨illicit¨ hydrocarbons activities and has taken similar legal measures.

Although Britain won the 1982 war fought over the Falkland Islands, Argentina still claims sovereignty over the territory. In June, Britain announced that it would be holding a referendum on the island´s political status.

The oil and natural gas exploration company Pan American Energy (PAE) ended its contracts with the companies Skanska and Contreras Hermanos today. Both these companies hired almost 1000 ‘Dragóns’, or workers of the Cerro Dragón oil field (the largest of its kind in Argentina) who have been picketing on a national highway in the province of Chubut, as part of a protest that began on June 21st.

The ‘Dragóns’ have been asking that PAE provide them with the same conditions and pay as they would to workers affiliated with the oil and gas workers union. Although they carry out many of the same tasks, the PAE rejects this possibility. In response, the ‘Dragóns’ began picketing on a national highway in Chubut and blocked the entrance of several oil fields in the area.

Officials stepped in yesterday to try to resolve the conflict between protesters and their employer. Federal Judge Eva Parcio ordered an eviction of the ‘Dragons’ from National Route 3, and Governer of Chubut Martín Buzzi tried to implement a conciliatory agreement between the protestors and PAE.

The PAE has responded today by cutting their contracts with the two companies responsible for hiring the ‘Dragóns.’ The company told La Nación that the decision was made because the two contracted companies did not comply with their responsibilities and did not protect PAE property and equipment during the protests. They affirmed, however, that the action taken today would “not affect the production of oil and gas.”

Representatives of the Dragóns said that the group would discuss this afternoon whether to accept the conciliatory agreement or not, and are still keeping some roads blocked. Guido Dickanson of the ‘Dragóns’ told El Ambito Financiero that for the conflict to end “they would have to give in to our demands, to solve the salary inequalities, to reincorporate those who were fired, and to not treat us like second-class workers.”

With news that huge deposits of shale gas – potentially the third largest in the world – have been found underground in Neuquén, the prospect of fracking in Argentina is greater than ever. Hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – is the process of extracting buried deposits of gas and oil by pumping water, chemical and sand miles under the ground. It’s detractors say it causes irreparable environmental damage and has been the source of small earthquakes while those extolling its virtues believe that exploiting this natural resource could make Argentina gas-independent, meaning they would no longer have to important the fuel.

Does the environmental damage outweigh the economic benefits? Robin Minchom takes to the streets to see what the people in Buenos Aires think. Photos by Diego Espinosa.

Carmela Mirabelli, Lawyer, 27, Palermo

Lucrative activities have nothing to do with the state. This activity, which seems to me a public activity, is something that interests all of us because it is a technique that could end up harming the environment which affects us all and not just Argentines, the whole world. For such a delicate subject should be debated, should be voted in a referendum – we should all participate and it’s not really about being against or in favour of this government. It’s much bigger than something one government should be able to decide on because the consequences of what could happen are enormous.

The right to and access to information are absolutely fundamental otherwise we will never be able to make conscious decisions about what is best for us. When talking about a subject that affects all of us, the politicians need to communicate to us. We can read the newspapers, but there also needs to be a politics of communication; we can’t just rely on a few journalists.

We need to know more about the pros and the cons and if the cons affect all of us and, what’s more are irreversible, say no more, that’s not negotiable. You can’t undo the damage you do to the environment.

Nehuén Perrotta, Juggler, 20, Llavallol

I’m against anything that damages the environment. Unfortunately few people understand the notion of it – look at how people treat water. For me the most important thing is nature and that is the least cared for.

I don’t believe them [the government and private companies who say they will do a responsible job]. What happens now when people deal with nature is they don’t do the studies that they need to, things like that. If someone is investigating fauna, then they won’t investigate the flora and they’re destroying both of their habitats; humans change everything.

Maybe it’s possible to do it while doing the least damage possible but they’d still be harming nature, but that’s how it goes. If you go into the whole economic side of it, it only ever benefits a few people. If it was better distributed … if it is like you say and we’re all going to be great afterwards fair enough but generally it ends up benefitting few. In Europe maybe it’s more controlled, here people are less conscious.

If we’re talking about what’s most important for me, it’s not worth it, but if we’re talking about the whole country, maybe, who knows?

Lucas Mueño, Administration, 33, Avellaneda

We are never going to find out if this gas is really being used to stop imports and is being used for the country’s economy. What I see these days is that we’re all human beings, we’re advancing a lot, so if it’s possible we should do it. We’ve arrived at a moment where we all have mobile phones and things we couldn’t have dreamed of 20, 30 years ago. I sincerely believe that the human being is very capable – I’m not talking about Argentines or anyone in particular, just human beings in general. If we can find a way to extract the gas without harming the environment, perfect. That the government does it properly and takes all the necessary means for all the economic benefits, I doubt it. I doubt it. You’ve got to have faith but knowing how things are and how they go about their business, it’s a shame. It’s a shame that we’re that capable but things like this only benefit a few, rather than everyone.

Whether they’ll do it correctly, I can’t say anything but I’m in agreement that we should make the most of our own resources. It’s better that our own country does it rather than companies from elsewhere. We should exploit the land. We’ve got fields and those have served us well but if we can do something with this gas, I think it would be good.

Marta, Teacher, 70, Mendoza Province

For me the environment is the most important because in the end, it’s us that are going to suffer. The benefits don’t reach the general population; they stay in the hands of those who run the business.

The risks seem too dangerous to try out this method which may cause tremors. If they don’t harm the environment and contaminate water, etc., they can do it but you always need to take care not to contaminate, something that could affect the local population.

I suppose you’ve got to trust the government and the private companies to do a responsible job, you’ve got to trust something but I don’t think they should try out this new technique. If it might cause tremors … I don’t live here, I live in a province where there are a lot of tremors. Every now and then we get tremors and they are not pleasant at all, and that’s very close to Neuquén [where the gas has been found]. We should find a more ecological way, that doesn’t contaminate and damage the environment.

Hernán Pérez, Lawyer, 51, Barrio Norte

I don’t think the environmental damage is that important if what we achieve is progress for the country. To make a tortilla you’ve got to break some eggs and the tortilla isn’t a bad thing, is it? When they built the Pan-American [Highway], people were complaining that they were chopping down lots of trees but if they hadn’t taken the trees down at that moment, they wouldn’t have been able to build it. There is always going to be someone who will complain about something that’s being done, there’s no doubt that will always happen. The cost-benefit is what we’ve got to look at.

If with this what we will achieve is that we have our own gas so we don’t have to buy, beyond the economic benefit, there will be more industry in the country and the province of Neuquén will be good. If not we have to live off air and nothing will get done. I think that progress is always good but there will always be someone complaining.

Private companies are going to look for their own benefits and they’re going to want to do the thing well to be able to get the most money out of it and the state has to control it so that the companies do it properly. We need those who are supposed to control it do a good job.