ECUADOR: PETROLEUM FIELDS MILITARIZED AS PROTESTS DISRUPT CRUDE PRODUCTION.
Protests in Ecuador have led the government to militarize a number of oil fields in the Amazon, although this has not prevented the protest from spreading to other regions. President Alfredo Palacio declared a state of emergency on Feb. 21 after protests disrupted oil production and delivery at private and state-owned installations. Residents demanding greater government support and spending in the regions where most of Ecuador's oil wealth comes from led moves against oil operations in Napo and Chimborazo, with groups in Cotopaxi and Pastaza also threatening to mount uprisings of their own. The actions have coincided with what the government claimed were the final stages of negotiations with Occidental Petroleum Corporation (Oxy) regarding tax revenues the company allegedly owes to Ecuador.
Sabotage cuts off private pipeline after negotiations fail
President Palacio declared the state of emergency in the country's oil-rich Amazon region after protesters, demanding greater social spending, sabotaged the country's Oleoducto de Crudo Pesado (OCP), the heavy-crude pipeline, which carries petroleum from the Amazonian interior to the Pacific Ocean. Soldiers and police began guarding oil wells and pipeline installations in the jungle region of Napo, Interior Ministry spokesman Rigoberto Medina said on Feb. 22. Napo lies 160 km east of the capital Quito. The pipeline, which has the capacity of 410,000 barrels per day, shut down that morning, said OCP Ecuador spokeswoman Barbara Reyes.
"Protests have halted while government officials meet with local leaders to look for a solution," Medina said in a phone interview from the capital.
The shutdown was the latest attack by residents against oil facilities in a continuing protest to boost government spending in the Amazon region, where most of Ecuador's oil is pumped. Protests in 2005 paralyzed oil production in key productive regions and resulted in the resignation of the interior minister (see NotiSur, 2005-08-26, 2005-09-23). Similar actions in August and September 2005 led Ecuador to suspend crude-oil exports, but the dispute was settled when the government promised to boost spending in the region.
The OCP pipeline stopped operating after protesters cut electrical cables and stole pumping-station computers, police director Gen. Jose Vinueza told Radio Quito. OCP Ecuador was carrying about 200,000 bpd for companies such as Repsol YPF and France's Perenco before the shutdown, Reyes said.
Police arrested 11 protesters including the regional prefect and mayor for breaking a curfew, Vinueza said.
"This was a plan prepared beforehand to the millimeter," administration secretary Jose Modesto Apolo told reporters, according to Quito daily El Comercio. "It is almost a paramilitary action. That means that there was very meticulous planning."
Apolo also alleged that the protests were coordinated by figures aligned with the Partido Sociedad Patriotica (PSP) of jailed ex-President Lucio Gutierrez's...
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