Interferences by Third Parties: The Challenge of the Construction of Highways on the Right of Way of Oil Pipelines — Case of Autopistas Del Nordeste-Ocensa

The development of third world countries is surrounded by a thousand challenges, one of them is to increase and modernize the transport infrastructure to improve competitiveness in an increasingly interconnected world. Colombia in recent years has undertaken a titanic task of construction of highways to meet this purpose, have hired more than 8170 km of roads, however, this task generates a major challenge for the oil industry since the construction of these roads generates an unplanned interference with the hydrocarbon transport infrastructure that, if not handled correctly, can cause ruptures or damage in the pipelines and the consequent economic and environmental losses. In 2015 the design of the highway that interconnects the municipalities of Remedios and Caucasia in the department of Antioquia began. This project was called Autopistas del Nordeste. The road was designed to pass through the Pocune river valley, however, the environmental licensing of this type of project requires the revision of the interference with other networks. It was found that the new road crossed the Ocensa pipeline at 26 points. The geographical conditions require the use of this small corridor by many lines, 2 pipelines (Ocensa and ODC), a 500 KV power line and, of course, the current tertiary route and the projected highway that connects these municipalities. The challenge is huge, in this article the project is described, the negotiation stages that have been necessary to carry out with the way to make compatible the projects and the threats that have been overcome in the constructive stage.