Ecuador suspends oil exports after pipeline shutdown
by AFP Staff Writers
Quito (AFP) July 4, 2025

Ecuador has suspended its oil exports after shutting down its two main pipelines due to damage from torrential rains in the Amazon region, the chief of state oil company Petroecuador said Thursday.

Petroecuador declared "force majeure" for the country's main SOTE pipeline which, along with the OCP pipeline, faces damage from river bank erosion following heavy rains in eastern Ecuador.

"Exports are suspended until a new solution is found with the alternative route we are working on for SOTE," said the company's chief executive Leonard Bruns.

He had previously told a press conference in capital Quito that technicians were working to modify the pipeline routes to resume oil pumping.

The two pipelines transport Ecuadorian crude from Amazonian oil fields in the country's northeast to the Pacific coast, with a combined capacity of 810,000 barrels per day.

In June, Petroecuador stopped pumping oil through the main pipeline due to a rupture in a section running through the Amazon.

Oil is one of Ecuador's primary exports. In 2024, Ecuador produced an average of 475,000 barrels a day, of which more than 70 percent was exported.

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