Sucumbios
Texaco's 1964-90 operations left 650,000 barrels spilled, 150% higher cancer rates. $9.5B judgment (2011, ratified 2024) remains unpaid. By 2026, Sucumbíos stays cautionary tale while contamination persists and legal battles continue.
Ground zero for oil's broken promises—Sucumbíos hosted Texaco's first 1964 explorations and now exhibits the environmental and health consequences that oil opponents elsewhere fear. Lago Agrio's oil fields discharged 19.3 billion gallons of toxic produced water into unlined pits; 650,000 barrels spilled between 1972-2015. Cancer rates remain 150% higher than Ecuador's average. The Cofán people watched their rivers poisoned and lands taken.
The 30,000-member class action lawsuit (filed 1993) became one of environmental law's longest sagas. Ecuador's courts awarded $9.5 billion in damages (2011, ratified November 2024); international arbitration ruled the judgment was obtained through fraud. Chevron has paid nothing. "Toxitours" run since 2003 show visitors the contamination that remains.
Nueva Loja (the capital, founded as Texaco's base camp) embodies extraction's aftermath: infrastructure without investment, employment without equity. Between April 2018 and December 2022, local NGOs documented 442 cancer cases in oil-affected cities; by February 2024, the count reached 531.
2026 trajectory: Legal battles continue across international jurisdictions. Remediation proceeds slowly—1.2 million m³ of soil treated by 2015, but contamination persists. Sucumbíos serves as cautionary tale cited whenever new Amazon drilling is proposed; whether that warning influences policy remains the province's bitter test.