OCP Ecuador wins Quito okay for pipeline route
Copyright 2001 Reuters
October 3, 2001
QUITO, Ecuador - Ecuador's capital city Quito has granted multinational consortium OCP Ecuador permission to build a new, heavy-crude pipeline that will cross sections of the city, the mayor said yesterday.
About 64 miles (103 km) of the 314-mile (503 km) pipeline will pass through Quito.The project - seen as a buoy for this Andean nation's economy-will nearly double crude transport capacity to 850,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The city had feared that the construction could affect local water services but after several months of intense study, authorized the project this week.
"It was a conditional approval. OCP agreed to pay for an audit during construction and operation, and for insurance so that if there is a problem the district is covered," Quito Mayor Paco Moncayo told Reuters.
Quito's approval was key for the consortium, which has faced fierce opposition to the project from local residents and environmental groups in the Amazon and the lush area around Mindo-Nambillo protected forest, some 16 miles (25 km) northwest of the capital.
Moncayo said the key issue was to ensure safe drinking water for residents of Quito and its nearby suburbs, which led to several small changes in the pipeline's route.
"We're talking about microvariations, from 300 to 500 meters, where there was a necessity," OCP's environmental manager, Miguel Aleman, told Reuters.
The new pipeline will carry heavy crude from the Amazon jungle across the Andean mountains to a port on the coast.
Currently, Ecuador has only one crude pipeline with a maximum capacity of 400,000 bpd, through which it transports both state and private production.
OCP is comprised of Alberta Energy Co. Ltd. , Agip Petroleum , Kerr-McGee Corp. , Occidental Petroleum Corp. , Spain's Repsol-YPF and Argentina's Perez Companc and construction firm Techint.