Pipeline Workers Attacked in Remote Area of Peru

By Ryan Dube 

LIMA, Peru--Gas-transportation company Transportadora de Gas del Peru SA said Tuesday that unknown individuals attacked workers that were building a compressor plant in a remote area of southern Peru that is rife with remnants of leftist guerrillas.

Transportadora de Gas, known as TgP, said that a contract worker was injured by a gun shot during the attack on Monday. The worker was transported to a hospital and is in stable condition, the company said.

"TgP deeply regrets and rejects the attacks against personnel working in the area and trusts that the Peruvian government will continue working to provide the necessary conditions for peace and security," the company said in a statement.

A spokesman for TgP declined to provide further details about the incident.

Transportadora de Gas del Peru operates a pipeline that transports gas from the Camisea fields in Peru's southeastern Amazon region to the country's Pacific coast.

About 50% of the feedstock for Peru's electricity generation depends on the pipeline.

The company has been working on a compressor plant in the province of La Convencion, in Cuzco region, that will increase the transportation capacity of the pipeline. The pipeline expansion project is aimed at increasing transport capacity for the local market, with the expansion scheduled to be completed in 2015.

Work on the plant was postponed last year after the company suspended activity due to the lack of security in the region.

The area is a stronghold of a splinter group of the Shining Path rebels, which launched an insurgency in the 1980s that was aimed at toppling Peru's government and replacing it with a Maoist-inspired state. Some 70,000 people were killed during the conflict.

The rebels are no longer seen as a threat to political stability. However, well-armed remnants still control isolated regions where they profit from the country's cocaine production.

In 2012, the rebels briefly kidnapped some 40 natural gas workers in the area. They regularly ambush and kill Peruvian security forces stationed in the region.

Transportadora de Gas del Peru restarted work on the compressor plant last year after the government increased security near the project.

Since then, Peruvian security forces made recent inroads against the rebels. Two of the Shining Path's top military commanders were killed last year by security forces.

On Tuesday, Peru's Armed Forces said that it confiscated a number of explosives and weapons after conducting several operations in the area. The Armed Forces said in a statement it is committed to improving security in the region.

Transportadora de Gas del Peru is an international consortium that includes Sonatrach of Algeria, South Korea's SK Corp., Franco-Belgian GDF Suez-Tractebel SA, Peru's Grana y Montero SAA and Transportadora de Gas Internacional SA, which is a unit of Colombia's Grupo Energia de Bogota.

In late January, Spanish energy company Enagas SA and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, or CPPIB, announced that they would acquire stakes in the consortium.

Write to Ryan Dube at [e-mail]

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