North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) has installed 1149 km of new flexible pipe on the eastern shore of Lake Maracaibo since beginning operations there in 2024. The pipe replaces ageing steel lines, which have been a main source of leaks that have damaged the lake for decades.
Flexible pipe with protective layers resists the corrosion associated with old steel. Laid in continuous sections from barges, it has fewer joints where leaks typically start. NABEP also repaired critical sections of 12-inch oil and gas trunk lines this year by installing nearly 4 km of new steel pipe.
Lake Maracaibo's pollution problem dates to the early 1900s. Decades of intensive production, inadequate maintenance and underinvestment left most of the lake's estimated 25 000 km of underwater pipeline corroding. In 2021, a Simón Bolívar University scientist told NASA's Earth Observatory that most of the pipelines were 50 years old. NASA has also cited estimates of 40 000 - 50 000 oil leaks and spills across Venezuela between 2010 and 2016 alone.
NABEP inherited part of that network in 2024 and made replacing it a priority. Rather than patching old lines section by section, the company is replacing each well's lines entirely. The program has run new flow and gas lines to 435 wells in the Bachaquero and Ceuta fields. Of those, 301 are already producing through the new pipe, with about 52 000 bpd now flowing from the wellhead through new lines. The remaining wells have their new lines in place and will produce through them when they come back online.
"Decades of neglect have left oil on Lake Maracaibo's shores and fishing families struggling to make a living from its waters," said NABEP CEO Alejandro Betancourt. "Cleanups alone can't keep up while old pipes keep leaking, so we're reinvesting in a lasting fix: replacing the corroded lines we inherited, one by one. We are working steadily to replace the graveyard of rusted equipment and oil slicks we see today with modern infrastructure built to the highest safety and environmental standards. We're committed to being good stewards of this lake and good neighbors to the communities that depend on it."
The work continues. NABEP has 176 km of new pipe in storage, 791 more in transit, and plans to lay about 3400 additional km, including new lines connecting 144 wells to the Bachaquero 3 compressor plant. The programme is part of broader efforts to clean up and restore Lake Maracaibo.
