State-owned Petroperu halted pumping on its 200,000 b/d North Peruvian Oil Pipeline as it sought to investigate an apparent leak.
Operations were stopped after crude was detected in a jungle river near the 306 km northern stretch of the 854 km pipeline, the Lima-based company said in a statement Monday.
German contractor Rosen failed to find a breach of the pipeline following an inspection in the Maranon Basin, Petroperu said.
Another company will carry out further inspections of the pipeline this week to look for cracks that may have been caused by rain-swollen rivers during the rainy season, it said.
Petroperu reopened the pipeline earlier this year following a two-year stoppage due to repeated leaks
The shutdown comes on top of a temporary operations halt at the catalytic cracking unit of Petroperu's 62,000 b/d Talara oil refinery over the weekend due to problems with a cooling unit, the company said in a separate statement.
Petroperu, which is working on a $5.4 billion expansion of the Talara refinery, sold off its 102,000 b/d La Pampilla refinery, production blocks, oil tankers and gasoline stations in the 1990s, leaving it with the pipeline and four aging refineries with a total capacity of 80,000 b/d.
Petroperu's refined product sales slid 1.4% year on year to 147,300 b/d in the fourth quarter of 2017, according to an earnings statement. Its Q4 2017 exports rose 2.6% year on year to 20,000 b/d, while the company increased its crude purchases by 11.5% year on year to 69,000 b/d.
