Latinnews Archive

Andean Group - 16 December 1983

ECUADOR

The state oil company, Cepe, is bringing new fields into exploitation. Cepe has found light crude in the south-east, which is the first concrete proof of the long-standing claim that this area had oil-bearing potential.


Cepe, the state-owned oil company has announced that by the end of the year the country will be producing a further 15,000 b/d. The oil comes from oil deposits in the Amazon from the Cuyabeno, Sansahuari, Tetete and Charapa fields. This additional oil will bring production in Ecuador to more than 250,000 b/d, of which currently 100,000 barrels are exported. A find in the north-east has helped, too, to re-assess the actual and potential reserves in the main oil zone. A newly-released official figure on reserves sets total recuperable reserves at 1.1bn barrels, and total probable reserves at 566m.Texaco has finally reached an agreement with the government and has said it will go ahead with production from the Cononaco field. Some seven companies finally tendered for the new exploration contracts, of the 25 which originally expressed firm interest. Occidental won first option on the most popular block, number 15, which adjoins Texaco-Cepe's highly productive area, and for which the government received three offers. Esso and Hispanoil made a joint offer for block 8, the only one; and Belco, which is already working off-shore areas in Peru, bid for the off-shore blocks and for blocks 1 and 2. Shell and British Petroleum were understood to have been influenced in their decision not to bid by Ecuador's stance on the Malvinas/Falklands conflict last year.


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