Ecuador’s oil production recovers 90%, with 461,000 barrels

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Ecuador recovered its oil production on Monday to 90% of the approximately 500,000 barrels of crude oil per day that it used to extract before the protests over the cost of living, which caused oil activity to drop to just over 50%.

This was reported this Monday in an interview with Efe by the Minister of Energy and Mines of Ecuador, Xavier Vera, who pointed out that the country’s oil production rose to 461,000 barrels a day after it fell to 262,000 on Thursday, June 30, when the protests ended.

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THE SITUATION IN ECUADOR

Vera explained that the state oil company Petroecuador, responsible for 80% of production, is at 88% of its numbers prior to the stoppage, while private companies, which extract the remaining 20%, are already operating normally.

This thanks to the reactivation of 952 of the 1,142 wells paralyzed during the eighteen protests, some after being taken over by groups of protesters and others as a precaution against similar acts.

The minister stressed that they expected to reach these figures eight or ten days after the end of the national mobilization called by the indigenous and peasant movement, but they have achieved it in half the time.

OIL LEVELS

“We are very happy with this because it shows that we are resilient and that we are capable of getting ahead, which is what we want,” said Vera, stressing that oil is “the oxygen” of the Ecuadorian economy, as it is its main export product.

The head of Energy and Mines trusted that in the coming weeks the production of Ecuadorian crude will recover to the level prior to the protests.

“The problem is that there are some fields where we still have to talk with the communities, and others where there has been vandalism. They’ve damaged valves and electrical systems, and that’s going to take a while to recover. We hope that in the coming weeks we will be at 100%”, Vera wished.

During the weekend, Vera visited, together with the general manager of Petroecuador, Ítalo Cedeño, several oil fields in the Amazon affected by the demonstrations and thanked the work of Petroecuador personnel and members of the Armed Forces who guarded various facilities to avoid the collapse of the industry.