After seven years, UK high court is due to decide whether BP is responsible for £18m in lost production to Colombian farmers, who claim a pipeline caused severe environmental damage to their lands

A UK high court will shortly decide whether British oil giant BP was responsible for serious environmental damage in Colombia when a pipeline was laid across the land of over 100 small farmers.



The Ocensa pipeline, which takes 650,000 barrels of crude a day from the giant Cusiana-Cupiagua oilfield in central Colombia to the country’s Caribbean coast, was buried up to 1.8 metres deep along its 828km length in the mid-1990s. But the farmers say that the work done was unsatisfactory and the design was at fault. Working with London law firm Leigh Day, they are suing BP for around £18m in lost production.

The “campesinos”, or subsistence farmers, claim that their streams and water sources were blocked, leading to uncontrolled erosion, the creation of marshy areas and a loss of much of their income when BP Exploration (Colombia) Ltd managed the pipeline’s construction . In 2011, the company was acquired by Ecopetrol and Talisman Energy and renamed Equión Energia. BP strongly rejects the allegations.

The “David and Goliath” trial, which follows seven years of legal arguments, opened in October and has concentrated on the damage allegedly done to four small farms.

It is now in its closing stages with both sides giving their closing submissions, and a judgment is expected in February. It is the first time that BP has faced a UK court over its actions overseas and the first time compensation for environmental damage to privately owned land, caused by a UK oil company, has been brought to court in Britain.



“The disparity between one of largest and most powerful global corporations armed with knowledge, power and resources and the campesinos whose lives and livelihoods are interwoven with the land they live on ... infuses this case. It is the key which will explain what went wrong when the defendant [BP] came along in 1996 and cut a swathe through the delicate land where the claimants live in order to drive their pipeline from the oilfield in central Colombia to the sea,” said Alexander Layton, QC for the farmers, in his opening submission.



Four farmers have come to London to give evidence. “Our water supply has been damaged by sedimentation since the pipeline was laid and I have lost cattle,” Velez Montoya, from Segovia, told Judge Stuart-Smith in the London Technology and Construction Court.

“I can no longer keep pigs or chickens because there is not enough water for them. The reason why we have travelled so far is because we have hope and faith that the high court in London will deliver justice to us,” he said.



Rodrigo de Jesus Mesa said that he used to grow crops and fruit, and keep chickens. “After the pipeline was laid our water sources filled up with mud,” he said. “It made farming very difficult – but I can’t even sell the farm because of the pipeline.



BP Exploration (Colombia) Ltd was acquired by Ecopetrol and Talisman Energy and renamed Equion Energia, in 20111 Photograph: Courtesy of Equion Energia

BP has denied responsibility for any damage, saying that the land the pipeline crossed suffered no material damage and that the construction of the pipeline was carried out to a high standard.

Acting in partnership with Colombia’s national oil company and other multinational companies, it has claimed in the court that the contracts it signed with the farmers were fair and that the compensation money they received at the time of the pipeline’s construction was generous. They have also argued that the farms were declining in productivity before the pipeline was constructed.



The case is expected to hinge on whether BP controlled the pipeline’s construction under Colombian law. “The key point is that all steps taken by the defendant [BP] as operator ... were taken as directed by and for the benefit of the project partners, and more particularly the steering committee. [BP] was not acting independently and with effective power and control under Colombian law,” said Charles Gibson QC for BP.



The case, which is expected to end next month, follows Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell being sued in the London courts for the first time for environmental damage caused in Nigeria. Last week, Shell settled with the local Nigerian community for £55m.

