Ecuadorian oil production recovers its volumes by 93%

This Ministry of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources release was published using machine translation.

This Thursday, January 6, the national oil production shows a recovery of 93%, compared to the volumes registered before the preventive stoppage of the oil pipelines, affected by the erosion of the Piedra Fina river in the province of Napo.

The Minister of Energy and Non-Renewable Natural Resources, Juan Carlos Bermeo Calderón, emphasized that “ the decision of the Ministry to lift the Force Majeure makes possible the reestablishment of normal operating conditions for crude oil transportation in the country, which has allowed us to recover very important production volumes. We have approximately 449,000 barrels per day of production, of which 346,000 barrels correspond to the state company and 103,000 barrels to private operators, "he said.

The recovery and normalization of operations concerning the hydrocarbon value chain are progressively fulfilled. At the moment, 2,167 wells, owned by the state oil company and private companies, have been turned on.

Likewise, since this Thursday, crude export loads have been resumed, benefiting the national economy. "720 thousand barrels of Napo Crude will be exported through the OCP terminal and 720 thousand barrels of Orient Crude through the Balao Maritime Terminal," informed the Minister.

The operations at the Esmeraldas and Shushufindi refineries are at 100% of their crude load, while the La Libertad refinery complex will reach its maximum capacity on January 9.

For its part, the OCP Ecuador Company has fully recovered its operations with around 240 thousand barrels of oil transported.