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Landslide cuts off primary oil pipeline in Ecuador

OPEC member Ecuador on Thursday suspended its oil exports because a landslide cut off its main pipeline, state-run Petroecuador oil company said.

"Exports were suspended and a force majeure was declared to avoid sanctions from our buyers, who already have been notified of the emergency," an unnamed Petroecuador official said.

Petroecuador said the main Transecuadoran pipeline connecting the country's oil fields in the Amazon jungle to the port city of Balao was severed by a rain-induced landslide that also took out 70m of a highway near Baeza.

"That situation forced the state-run company to declare an emergency at the pipeline," a company statement said.

The pipeline, it added, carried 331,200 barrels of oil per day (bpd) last year. Another pipeline unaffected by the landslide carried 148,800 bpd of heavier crude for private oil companies last year.

The Petroecuador official said there are enough oil reserves in Balao to meet the country's demands while the pipeline is under repair.

Ecuador, the smallest OPEC producer and number five in South America, extracts some 511,000 bpd, of which 67 percent is exported. It made US$7.43 billion in oil revenues last year.
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