Ecuador and Peru revive crude oil pipeline talks

Ecuador and Peru resumed talks on the possibility of linking their crude oil pipeline systems. Canada's Alberta Energy Co. Ltd. completed a prefeasibility study earlier this year financed through the Canadian-Peruvian binational energy and mines technical committee.

Aug. 7, 2001

2 min read

By an OGJ Online Correspondent

LIMA, Aug. 7 -- Ecuador and Peru resumed talks on the possibility of linking their crude oil pipeline systems.

The pipeline project has been under discussion for a couple of years. Canada's Alberta Energy Co. Ltd. completed a prefeasibility study earlier this year financed through the Canadian-Peruvian binational energy and mines technical committee (OGJ Online, May 24, 2000).

One proposal would involve Petroecuador using surplus capacity in Peru's 200,000 b/d North Peruvian pipeline to pump crude oil from its fields near Peru's northern border to the Bayovar marine terminal on Peru's north coast.

Petroperu currently uses one-third of the pipeline's capacity, transporting oil from Block 1AB and Block 8, both operated by Argentina's Pluspetrol. The two blocks' production in the month of June averaged 59,230 b/d.

The pipeline project was revived on Aug. 6 at a meeting in Lima between Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru's energy and mines ministers Ramiro Valencia, Pablo Teran, and Jaime Quijandria.

The ministers met initially to discuss interconnection of power lines between the three countries, on which Ecuador and Colombia have recently reached agreement for a line between Pasto and Quito.

Quijandria said some technical issues in the pipeline proposal must be identified and a legal framework would also have to be established in order to move forward.