Ecuador's Oil Output Drops to 50,000 BBL/d

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Written by Amir Richani for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Ecuador's oil output dropped from 464,000 barrels per day (BBL/d) on July 1 to slightly more than 50,000 BBL/d by July 15 as a result of the shutdown of the Sistema de Oleoductos Transecuatorianos (SOTE) and the Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados (OCP), the nation's two main pipelines which transport oil from the fields in the eastern part of the country to the Pacific coast.

On July 1, the 450,000-BBL/d, 485 kilometre OCP halted its operations due to severe weather and erosion at the Loco River in the municipality of Gonzalo Diaz de Pineda, in the province of Napo.

The company announced the construction of a bypass to avoid impact on the pipeline and restart operations. Though on July 7, after restarting operations for a few hours, flows through the OCP were suspended as a second bypass was needed for the pipeline. Since then, the company in charge of operating the OCP has not issued an update.

At the same time, the government and Petroecuador (Quito, Ecuador) announced a force majeure on the 360,000-BBL/d, 497-kilometre SOTE pipeline as a preventive measure due to severe weather and river erosion, which threatened the pipeline's operations. The company also announced the construction of a bypass over two rivers.

By July 3, the energy ministry had reported the closure of 560 oil wells due to the situation.

The continuous drop in Ecuador's oil production until July 15 suggests that the pipeline operations had not restarted by then.

On Monday, July 14, Carolina Jaramillo, the government's spokesperson, announced that the SOTE would restart operations by Thursday, July 17. However, no announcement has been published by the energy ministry or Petroecuador since then.

Petroecuador's output dropped from 370,000 BBL/d on July 1 to 32,000 BBL/d on July 15.

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