ECUADOR TO USE COLOMBIA OIL LINK FOR FIVE YEARS
Ecuador will use a new pipeline link
with Colombia to export crude oil for the next five years,
Colombian mines and energy minister Guillermo Perry said.
    The link will be inaugurated on May 8. It was built to
allow Ecuador to resume exports of crude oil halted on March 5
by earthquake damage to its Lago Agrio to Balao pipeline,
    Once that pipeline is repaired, Ecuador will exceed its
OPEC quota in order to offset lost income and pay debts
contracted with Venezuela and Nigeria since the quake, Ecuador
mines and energy minister Javier Espinosa said.
    The two ministers were speaking at a news conference after
signing an agreement for joint oil exploration and exploitation
of the jungle border zone between the two nations. Drilling
will begin in September.
    "The agreement to transport Ecuadorean crude oil is not only
for this emergency period but for the next five years, with
possibility of an extension. Between 20,000 and 50,000 barrels
per day (bpd) will be pumped along it," Perry said.
    Espinosa said Ecuador planned to pump 35 mln barrels
through the link in the next five years, at a cost of 75 cents
per barrel during the first year.
    The 43-km link, with a maximum capacity of 50,000 bpd, will
run from Lago Agrio, the centre of of Ecuador's jungle
oilfields, to an existing Colombian pipeline that runs to the
Pacific port of Tumaco.
    Espinosa said the 32-km stretch of the link built on the
Ecuadorean side cost 10.5 mln dlrs. Perry gave no figures for
Colombia's 11 km segment but said it was "insignificant compared
with what we are going to earn."
    OPEC member Ecuador was pumping around 250,000 bpd before
the quake. Lost exports of 185,000 bpd are costing it 90 mln
dlrs per month, Espinosa said.
 REUTER
