Chevron Accuses Richard Cabrera Of Voodoo Economic In Ecuador

Professor Richard Cabrera, the economist who's estimates have served to frame the environmental damage terms of debate in the court battle between giant oil company Chevron and the coutry of Ecuador, has been accused of what could be called "Voodoo Economics" by the San Ramon-based firm.

In a damaging press release, Chevron write the following:

Despite an awareness of these fundamental defects, Cabrera’s amended assessment makes no effort to correct any prior mistakes and introduces a new series
of egregious errors, such as:

• Recommending more than $9 billion in damages associated with “excess cancer deaths” without identifying a single victim, let alone providing any corroborating documentation such as a death certificate or a medical diagnosis.
• Recommending more than $3 billion in damages associated with groundwater contamination
even though his own data clearly indicate no such contamination exists, and Cabrera
acknowledges that he has no basis for devising a remediation plan or developing a cost estimate.
Rather, Cabrera simply adopts plaintiffs’ counsel’s demands to assess damages and repackages
them as fact.
• Conceding that his work was conducted in such a fashion as to assign blame to Chevron instead
of performing an objective and unbiased scientific analysis of current environmental conditions,
as the court had ordered.

Their assertions continue and essentially build a case to attack Cabrera's work. But my charge has been it's almost impossible to find anything about Cabrera online, other than his work on the Ecuador lawsuit against Chevron, where the country is attempting to have the oil firm pay entirely for environmental damage that Ecuador itself is largely responsible for. In this matter, Cabrera has filed fraudulent economic report claims, making estimates of monetary damage costs without providing substantiated evidence to support his report findings.

Richard Cabrera: Who Is Prof Cabrera And Why Can't One Find Info On Him?

 UPDATE: Chevron attacks Cabrera's Voodoo Economics. 


Richard Cabrera is a supposed geologist and environmental expert based in Ecuador, and who's large damage estimates have played a major role in the case of Ecuador v. Chevron.  His first estimate of Chevron's alledged environmental damage was $16 billion, but he's increased that to $27 billion to take into account Ecuadorians who may have been striken with cancer.


And here's the problem.  No one knows where he got the new damage estimate from!  What was the multiplier?  Why?  But I have another really basic question: who is this guy?  I can't find anything in the way of a resume or a website listing from whatever university Prof Cabrera represents.  In the 21st Century, how the hell can someone claim to be "a World-class expert" if no one can find them online around the World?


A search for "Richard Cabrera, geologist "yields nothing not connected with the Chevron case yet carrying his name.  If the Chevron case isn't his first rodeo, then how can we be sure?   Just because a court appointed him in Ecuador?  He's supposed to be a World-known expert.


Cabrera's resume is something that must be investigated considering the gravity of the case he's involved in.

Richard Cabrera Files Fraudulent Report: Chevron Claim

The "Richard Cabrera Report" is the basis for the much-used number "$16 billion" as the cost of Ecuador's lawsuit against Chevron. Now, Chevron representatives hammered this claim for the following reasons:

1. Cabrera manipulated and altered findings to justify false conclusions, including backdating photos;

2. He presented no evidence of pollution by Texaco Petroleum, erroneously assigning $1.4 billion in remediation costs to pits he did not visit and do not exist;

3. He presented no evidence to support cancer claims - neither identifying a single individual nor including a single medical report;

4. He did not take a single drinking water sample to establish contamination, yet he assigned $428 million in damages to be paid to improve Ecuador's potable water system;

5. Plaintiffs helped Cabrera compile the report, accompanying and assisting him on field trips, influencing the content of his report by providing him methodological tools such as questionable surveys and pre-written reports to use as report exhibits;

Item number 5 is key, because it's another example of how the government of Ecuador has been assisting the lawsuit against Chevron. Finding evidence to support this claim has been hard but this is one more item.