Peru's government has deployed army troops to safeguard a jungle stretch of the Camisea natural gas and gas liquids pipelines from potential attacks under a 60-day emergency declaration.
The lines are critical to Peru's LNG and LPG export businesses, which are operating normally.
The emergency measure covers an 80km stretch of the parallel lines running from the Camisea fractionating plant to Echarate province in the southeastern jungle.
The emergency decree, which puts the army in charge of security, extends for five kilometers on either side of the twin gas and gas liquids lines.
The decree states that the pipeline system is susceptible to terrorist attacks, but does not elaborate.
TGP, the pipeline operator controlled by Argentina's Tecgas, was unavailable for comment.
The twin pipelines pass through remote jungle areas that are home to remnants of a Maoist insurgency, Shining Path, which terrorized Peru in the 1980s and early 1990s. The group routinely targeted infrastructure. Its war on the state cost Peru more than 70,000 lives and $25bn in losses, according to a truth commission that reported on the violence in the previous decade.
Shining Path remnants targeted the gas line when it was under construction in mid-2003, staging a mass kidnapping of workers. Several more violent incidents near the line took place in subsequent years.
The 730km gas pipeline is critical to Peru's economy, providing gas for approximately 40pc of power generation in November, according to the energy ministry. It also supplies gas to Peru LNG, the only liquefaction plant along South America's Pacific coast. The ministry estimated that Peru would lose close to $500mn per day if the pipeline is knocked off line.
Peru produced 1.4bn cf/d of gas in November, with 1.1bn cf/d from Camisea's blocks 56 and 88, operated by Argentina's Pluspetrol, and 205mn cf/d from adjacent block 57, operated by Spain's Repsol.
Peru LNG, operated by US-based Hunt Oil, has dispatched 549 LNG cargoes since 2010, including three in December, two to China and one to South Korea.
By Lucien Chauvin
