The oil tanker Anrietta unloading petroleum products in Georgetown, Guyana.
Photo: Victor Moriyama/InfoAmazonia
Half a century of oil exploration has left the world’s largest rainforest scarred by deforestation, water contamination and air pollution. Indigenous lands have been infringed and economic disparities exacerbated. Now a new wave of drilling threatens to perpetuate this destructive legacy.
April 1, 2025
The Amazon now holds nearly one-fifth of the world’s recently discovered oil and natural gas reserves, establishing itself as a new global frontier for the fossil fuel industry.
Almost 20 percent of global reserves identified between 2022 and 2024 are located in the region, primarily offshore along South America’s northern coast between Guyana and Suriname. This wealth has sparked increasing international interest from oil companies and neighboring countries like Brazil, which is looking to exploit its own coastal resources.
In total, the Amazon region accounts for 5.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent: A unit of measurement that converts energy sources into barrels of oil. (boe) of around 25 billion discovered worldwide during this period, according to our analysis of Global Energy Monitor data, which tracks energy infrastructure development globally.
“The Amazon and adjacent offshore blocks account for a large share of the world’s recent oil and gas discoveries,” said Gregor Clark, lead of the Energy Portal for Latin America, an initiative of Global Energy Monitor. For him, however, this expansion is “inconsistent with international emissions targets and portends significant environmental and social consequences, both globally and locally.”
In addition to its identified reserves, the Amazon holds a significant portion of the most under-explored areas in South America. The region encompasses 794 oil and gas blocks—officially designated areas for production, though the existence of resources is not guaranteed. Nearly 70 percent of these Amazon blocks are either under study: Blocks in the study phase are areas delimited for oil and natural gas exploration that are still under analysis. At this stage, geological, seismic and environmental studies are carried out to assess the potential of the reserves before a possible bidding process. or available for market bidding: Blocks in the study phase are areas delimited for oil and natural gas exploration that are still under analysis. At this stage, geological, seismic and environmental studies are carried out to assess the potential of the reserves before a possible bidding process., meaning they remain unproductive.
In contrast, 60 percent of around 2,250 South American blocks outside the Amazon have already been awarded—authorized for reserve exploration and production—highlighting the Amazon as a promising avenue for industry expansion. This is our analysis based on data from Amazon countries up to July 2024 compiled by the Arayara International Institute, which monitors oil activities in the region. Of the entire Amazon territory, only French Guiana is devoid of oil blocks, as contracts have been banned by law there since 2017.
This new wave of oil exploration threatens a biome critical to global climate balance and the people who live there, coinciding with a global debate on reducing fossil fuel dependency.
“It’s no use talking about sustainable development if we keep exploiting oil,” said Guyanese Indigenous leader Mario Hastings. “We need real change that includes Indigenous communities and respects our rights.”
The oil industry’s relentless push into the Amazon is the focus of this cross-border project Every Last Drop. This report is the first of a series, a collaborative journalistic effort by InfoAmazonia, alongside partners GK, Ojo Público, and Rutas del Conflicto. It encompasses in-depth data analyses, dozens of interviews and field investigations in five countries that comprise more than 80 percent of the biome: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana and Peru.
Over the past year, this extensive investigation has mapped the socio-environmental damage inflicted by more than five decades of oil production in the Amazon, as well as the threats posed by recent incursions. The report also explores the economic and political mechanisms driving renewed interest in these well-trodden oil paths.
Abundant in natural resources, the Amazon seldom benefits from its production. Instead, the series reveals that while half of South America’s oil is exported to foreign markets, and its royalties exacerbate inequality rather than foster local development, the region is left with deforestation and water pollution from oil operations.
As oil companies aim to extract every possible drop from the rainforest and its coastline, they are overrunning protected natural areas and Indigenous territories. In the Amazon, 81 awarded blocks overlap with 441 ancestral lands, and 38 more affect 61 protected natural areas. Moreover, according to the project’s analysis, 114 blocks under study or available for bidding are located on Indigenous territories, and 58 are within protected natural areas.
This expansionist movement, rooted in the extractivist model dominant since European colonization of the Americas more than five centuries ago, relies on agreements that disadvantage local populations, incites internal conflicts within affected communities, and draws armed groups to resource-rich areas lacking state presence and services.
A new oil rush on the Amazon coast
Guyana, a small and hitherto inconspicuous nation in South America, has become the epicenter of global oil discoveries, earning the moniker “the new Dubai: Dubai, one of the main cities in the United Arab Emirates, symbolizes oil-driven prosperity..” This designation is often used by foreign executives from newly established companies within the country.
The oil boom has propelled Guyana’s economy forward, yet it also presents challenges such as rising inflation and worsening social inequality. Moreover, the burgeoning oil industry poses a threat to the country’s remarkable natural landscape, with 90 percent of Guyana still covered by the Amazon rainforest.
“The world is moving towards a future without fossil fuels, but Guyana is opening itself up to oil and gas,” said Guyanese environmentalist Sherlina Nagger. “Our leaders are on the wrong side of history.”
Recent substantial discoveries in neighboring Suriname, along with those in Guyana, have reignited interest in the equatorial margin. This coastal strip extends for thousands of kilometers near the equator and largely encompasses the Amazon biome.
In the region, Venezuela has rekindled its interest in annexing Essequibo, a contested Guyanese territory. This area, once disputed by the Spanish and British empires in the 19th century, has again become a hotspot due to its oil potential.
Meanwhile, Brazil, which possesses the largest portion of this strategic zone, faces obstacles to its oil exploration efforts. These include a history of unsuccessful drilling attempts dating back to the 1970s and, more recently, repeated refusals to allow state-owned oil company Petrobras to conduct research in Block 59. This area is situated in the Foz do Amazonas, where the mouth of Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
MORE THAN 92%
of the offshore blocks of the Amazon are either under study or up for market bidding
In May 2023, Ibama, Brazil’s environmental agency, denied Petrobras’ application to research the block. The agency’s report, endorsed by 26 analysts and reaffirmed in November 2024, highlighted flaws in the company’s emergency plans, which could endanger sensitive Amazonian ecosystems. This area is home to the largest continuous mangrove expanse in the world and a recently documented extensive reef system, both of which have significant scientific and ecological potential.
Activities in the area pose significant threats to the climate, researchers caution. “Opening up new areas for oil exploration in the Amazon contradicts the Paris Agreement’s recommendations to limit global warming,” warned Philip Fearnside, a scientist at the National Institute for Amazon Research. “Moreover, the risk of oil spills in this region would be catastrophic.”
Despite the risks, Petrobras remains undeterred in its pursuit of exploring the equatorial margin. As the controversy intensified in early 2024, the then-President of the state-owned company, Jean Paul Prates asserted that Petrobras was committed to extracting “every last drop of oil” from the nation.
Following disagreements with the Brazilian government, Prates was replaced in May 2024 by Magda Chambriard, a former director-general of Brazil’s Petroleum Agency. Upon assuming leadership, Chambriard affirmed Petrobras’ continued commitment to its strategic plan, declaring, “We can’t give up on the equatorial margin.”
Echoing Chambriard’s stance, key figures in the Brazilian government have voiced their support for extraction. Fernando Haddad, the Minister of Finance, preached “all caution” to ensure safe exploration. Meanwhile, Alexandre Silveira, the Minister of Mines and Energy, remarked that Guyana is “sucking the oil” from the region due to Brazil’s inaction.
Despite varying tones among the authorities, the rationale for exploiting the area remains consistent: boosting the local economy through royalties and job creation. Ultimately, the operation is seen as inevitable.
“We’re going to explore the equatorial margin; there’s no reason not to,” President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stated in a June 2024 interview.
Under political pressure, Marina Silva, the Minister for the Environment and Climate Change, has reiterated that the decision made by Ibama, an agency under her ministry, is “technical.” She stressed the importance of adhering to the agency’s procedures to prevent “irreparable” environmental harm to the region.
The Brazilian equatorial margin is entirely delimited by oil blocks, though they have yet to be explored, according to our analysis. Moreover, over 92 percent of the offshore blocks in the Amazon are either under study or are available for market bidding.
Latin American oil is chiefly sold to foreign markets, according to data from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Currently, at least half of output is exported, primarily to the United States and China, with exports expected to increase progressively over the coming decades.
OPEC’s data does not include the Amazon region. However, the presence of several untapped reserves indicates that this biome could increasingly contribute to the international supply.
Ecuador and Peru: a legacy of exploitation – and damage
Whereas oil exploration on the equatorial margin is just beginning, countries such as Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia have been producing oil in the Amazon for decades. While this activity has helped boost their economies, it has also deepened the damage to the biome.
In Ecuador, oil accounts for more than seven percent of the country’s GDP, but its production has resulted in an average of two oil spills a week in recent years. Since the 1970s, when the American company Texaco (now Chevron) opened the first major exploration frontier in the Ecuadorian Amazon, accidents have plagued the region.
At that time, the oil company caused serious leaks and improperly disposed of toxic waste, which contaminated rivers and soil, affecting local communities. This case has become one of the most emblematic examples of environmental harm linked to the global oil industry.
Despite claiming to have remedied the damage, Texaco continues to face legal challenges from Indigenous groups. When its concession ended in the 1990s, state-run Petroecuador assumed control of its operations, increasing production and perpetuating the impacts.
Today, Petroecuador plays a leading role in the development of oil fields in the Ecuadorian Amazon. According to our analysis, the state-owned enterprise oversees 24 oil and gas blocks. This is the largest number within Ecuador and ranks second among Amazon nations, following the Brazilian natural gas company Eneva.
Among Petroecuador’s operations is the contentious Block 43 in Yasuní National Park, a sanctuary for one of the world’s most biodiverse regions and home to Indigenous peoples living in isolation. In August 2023, a historic referendum mandated the cessation of oil drilling in the park. The government was allowed one year to halt the activities; however, progress has been minimal, with efforts largely confined to forming a commission to oversee the measures sanctioned by the public vote.
“They are violating the most fundamental aspect of any democratic system: the will of the people expressed at the ballot box,” said Alex Rivas Toledo, an anthropologist and author of a book on the isolated peoples of the Yasuní.
Oil drilling in this park is not an isolated case but rather part of a concerning trend in Ecuador. To date, 21 blocks have been authorized within protected natural areas in the Ecuadorian Amazon, covering more than 7,000 square kilometers—the largest overlap among the countries analyzed.
In the Amazonian countries, there are oil blocks in research and production that overlap with protected natural areas
Ecuador stands out for having the largest number of blocks awarded in protected natural areas.
Currently, 21 oil and gas blocks within protected natural areas of the Ecuadorian Amazon are already under research and production.
There is more than seven thousand km² over 16 protected natural areas – the largest area among Amazonian countries.
In total, 38 blocks overlap with 9,326 km² of protected natural areas in the Amazon.
The research and production of oil also affect Indigenous lands in the Amazon.
In Ecuador, the 41 awarded blocks affect 207 ancestral territories.
Nearly 21,000 km² overlaps with Indigenous lands in the Ecuadorian Amazon – again the highest rate among the analyzed countries.
Peru has the second largest area of Indigenous lands affected by oil blocks. It covers nearly 14,000 km² across 143 territories.
This reality primarily affects the Kichwa, Waorani, and Achuar ethnic groups, who inhabit both countries.
In total, there are 81 blocks overlapping with 39,756 km² of Amazonian Indigenous lands.
In all the Amazon, there are 441 Indigenous lands and 61 protected natural areas directly impacted by oil blocks in research and production.
Of Ecuador’s 15 Indigenous nationalities, 11 reside in the Amazon region, where their way of life is often at odds with oil exploration efforts. The country has granted oil blocks that impact 207 Indigenous territories—the most extensive overlap among the countries analyzed—covering nearly 21,000 square kilometers in the Amazon.
Peru ranks second, with nearly 14,000 square kilometers of oil blocks overlapping with 143 Indigenous lands. This situation primarily impacts the Kichwa, Waorani, and Achuar ethnic groups, who reside in both nations.
Among other regions, the Kichwa and Waorani communities inhabit Ecuador’s Yasuní Park, while the Achuar people reside in Peru’s Loreto region, a major producer of oil and gas. Despite Loreto’s status as the leading recipient of oil royalty revenues in Peru, local peoples, including Indigenous groups, grapple with poverty and limited access to essential services like healthcare.
The residents of Loreto have faced the consequences of oil drilling since the 1970s, when the first major oil frontier was established in the Peruvian Amazon. For the Achuar people, their territory intersects with Blocks 8 and 192, which are among the oldest and top the list for environmental fines in the region, based on our analysis of data from the Peruvian Environmental Assessment and Inspection Agency (Oefa).
In the past 13 years, Block 8 has accumulated 88 violations related to oil drilling, the highest number in the Peruvian Amazon. Next is Block 192, home to the country’s largest oil reserve, with 35 violations. Both blocks are currently halted due to contractual disputes.
They also lead the ranking of oil spills. Over two decades, a survey by Oxfam recorded 189 spills in Block 8, followed closely by Block 192, which experienced 155 spills.
Unlike Brazil, oil activities in Indigenous territories are permitted in Ecuador and Peru, as long as there is prior consultation with affected communities. But in practice, this consultation frequently violates legislation or is bypassed.
“The oil business seems to be profitable only if, in the companies’ calculations, the environment or the very lives of the communities are discarded,” said David Díaz Ávalos, an advisor to the organization Amazon Indigenous Peoples United in Defense of their Territories.
Gas flaring affects Amazonians
In the Amazon, beyond the extraction of oil, the flaring of natural gas poses a significant concern. Seen from miles away, these intense flames blaze atop metal towers, discharging excess gas from oil exploration directly into the atmosphere. This process emits both CO₂ and methane, the latter having a warming potential over 20 times greater than CO₂.
Despite the harm this practice inflicts on climate change%20as%2083%20million%20cars.) and human health, several countries still permit it. It is especially prevalent in remote areas like the Amazon, where inadequate infrastructure hampers the capture and processing of gas.
In 2023, Ecuador burned off 1.6 billion cubic meters of gas during oil operations in the Amazon. This amount is more than triple the country’s total annual natural gas consumption. This accounts for 82 percent of all the gas flared in the Amazon biome that year, according to our analysis, using data from SkyTruth Flaring—a platform that employs satellite imagery to identify gas flaring related to global oil extraction.
Between 2012 and 2023, 17.6 billion cubic meters of gas were released into the Amazon. Ecuador was the predominant contributor, responsible for 75 percent of the total, equating to 34 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions released into the atmosphere.
34 million tonnes
of CO₂ were emitted by gas flaring in Ecuador between 2012 and 2023
Ecuador is making internal efforts to address these emissions. In 2021, a regional court ordered the government to remove some of the oil industry’s gas flares located near populated areas in the Amazon provinces. However, this ruling has yet to be fully executed.
“We grew up alongside oil flares that, for more than half a century, have brought death, destruction, and poverty to our Amazon,” stated a group of young Amazonian women in a manifesto. Together with an organization representing victims of the former Texaco, they are pursuing legal action to halt gas flaring in Ecuador.
1.2 million
people affected by gas flaring in the Amazon
Throughout the Amazon, gas flaring affects approximately 1.2 million people who live within five kilometers of the chimneys, with Bolivia, Ecuador, and Venezuela being particularly seriously affected. This information is derived from our analysis, utilizing population density estimates by Kontur and a study by the Clean Air Task Force that employed the same distance to evaluate the health risks to nearby populations.
The energy transition in Colombia faces obstacles
Since taking office in 2022, President Gustavo Petro has sought to steer Colombia in a different direction to other Amazonian nations by proposing environmentally ambitious policies. These include a ban on new oil and gas exploration, the cessation of fracking — a method involving the high-pressure injection of fluids to extract oil and gas that poses significant risks — and the suspension of offshore oil projects.
But Colombia faces a challenge with its existing 381 oil and gas contracts, which must be honored, while the industry continues to push for research of new reserves. This pursuit is driven by the argument that the nation has less than ten years’ worth of oil to meet domestic demands. Consequently, exploration efforts are advancing. Between 2022 and 2023, Colombia ranked among the top ten countries in terms of discovered reserve volumes, according to the Global Energy Monitor. Additionally, in 2024, Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol, along with Brazil’s Petrobras, uncovered new natural gas reserves in the country.
The operators with the most blocks awarded in the Amazon region are Gran Tierra Colombia, (a subsidiary of the Canadian company of the same name), Amerisur Exploración Colombia (a subsidiary of Chile’s GeoPark and also known as Nueva Amerisur) and state-owned Ecopetrol. They are among the operators whose blocks have accumulated the highest number of environmental fines in the Colombian Amazon, mainly due to water and soil contamination from oil spills, according to penalty data from the Ministry of Defense.
Episodes of disrespect toward local populations are common. In recent years, the Awá people have sought legal action against Ecopetrol, seeking compensation for the damage caused by a series of oil spills in their territory. In 2022, Gran Tierra Energy faced criticism for violating the rights of the Inga people regarding an oil project. That year, Nueva Amerisur became the target of an international lawsuit due to its impact on the Siona people.
In our analysis, we found that 79 Indigenous lands and 30 protected natural areas in the Colombian Amazon overlap with oil blocks, covering 2,600 square kilometers of protected land.
The situation is aggravated by the presence of guerrillas in oil-drilling areas of the Colombian Amazon. The 2016 Peace Agreement aimed to conclude decades of conflict, but it has instead sparked disputes between dissidents and emerging armed groups over control of resource-rich areas previously dominated by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
A truth commission set up after the peace agreement revealed oil companies used the conflict to hire security from paramilitary groups and count on state protection. Meanwhile, communities faced both armed violence and unbridled oil drilling in their territories.
Commission reports and journalistic investigations have revealed that thousands of attacks on oil pipelines by guerrilla groups, alongside oil theft, have been used as a military tactic to penalize oil companies for not paying extortion fees. These attacks have resulted in irreversible environmental damage, contaminating rivers, jeopardizing access to drinking water, and threatening species in the Amazon and other regions.
These practices did not cease with the peace agreement or Gustavo Petro’s recent pledge to environmental protection—quite the opposite. “The control of these armed actors over territories is increasingly visible and frequent,” said María Espinosa, a lawyer with Amazon Frontlines, an organization that collaborates with Amazonian communities affected by the combination of guerrilla warfare and oil exploration. “It’s getting more and more violent.”
However, the shortcomings in managing the impact of oil in the Amazon are evident even in less dramatic scenarios. “There is no such thing as safe oil and gas drilling; all projects have leaks,” remarks Luiz Afonso Rosário of 350.org Brasil.
He highlights that, for decades, oil has been presented as a promise of economic liberation for South American countries. Yet, he stresses: “What we see is that all the social ills are there, and only half a dozen people have got rich.”
For Rosário, the chasm between promises and reality in the Amazon underscores an urgent need for a broader and more inclusive debate on the future of the biome. “They’re going to devastate the Amazon with more infrastructure to benefit the fossil industry. We should be investing in renewable energies,” he warns.