By Dana Ford

LIMA, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Energy sector investments in Peru, which is working to become an exporter of oil and natural gas, are expected to hit $1.5 billion in both 2009 and 2010, the president of the country's energy agency said on Wednesday.

After an initial delay, the agency plans to auction more than a dozen lots this year, betting investors will bite despite the economic downturn, which has hit oil prices and forced most global energy companies to cut back.

The push is part of Peruvian President Alan Garcia's oft-repeated goal to use the country's vast, and largely untapped wealth of natural resources to spur economic growth.

Energy outlays last year totaled some $1.48 billion.

"In spite of (oil) prices having fallen ... no investor has left Peru. All of them continue working and what's more, there are new investors arriving, and wanting to participate in the market," Perupetro President Daniel Saba told Reuters.

He said the auction, which was set for July, should now happen in "October or November -- definitely this year."

The majority of the 17 lots up for grabs are located in the country's Amazon jungle, which energy analysts say has an enormous potential for oil and natural gas development.

The auction would be Peru's first since last year, when several top government officials were forced to step down after being accused of steering concessions to favored bidders.

Saba said a number of local and foreign firms have already expressed an interest in this year's sale.

"I can't name names, but in the group are companies without a current presence in Peru -- and that are big," he said.

Among energy firms that have operations in Peru right now are Spain's Repsol <REP.MC>, Paris-based Perenco, Argentina's Pluspetrol, Brazil's Petrobras <PETR4.SA> <PBR.N>, U.S.-based Maple Energy and Peru's own state energy company, Petroperu.

PLAN NOT WITHOUT PROTESTS

The plan to open vast swaths of the Amazon jungle has drawn fierce criticism from environmental and human rights groups, which say energy operations threaten to damage the environment and risk exposing remote tribes to new and deadly diseases.

Protests came to a head in June, when police clashed with tribal demonstrators, opposed to what they perceived to be the government's push to open their ancestral lands to foreign energy and mining investment.

Some 34 people, including police and protesters, died.

The clashes quickly became the biggest political crisis of President Garcia's term, forcing him to shuffle his Cabinet last month in a bid to calm an emboldened opposition.

Saba said many communities are simply misinformed about the potential impact of energy operations in the jungle.

"When they oppose (a project), it's because they do not have correct information, so it's logical for them to be scared. We must inform them well," he said.

In the past, rights groups have also slammed Saba and Perupetro for what they say is the agency's failure to protect tribes that historically have shunned contact with outsiders.

Peru's government is currently mulling the creation of five new reserve areas to protect the several thousand people who rights groups say live in voluntary isolation.

Saba said organizations that push for the protection of so-called uncontacted tribes often cite decades-old studies.

"So far as we know now, there is just one place -- in Madre de Dios, near the border with Brazil -- where there might be (an uncontacted tribe)," he said.

Saba did not rule out the possibility others might exist, but said further study was needed. (Reporting by Dana Ford; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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