--OCP Ecuador and Colombia's Vetra signed a deal to transport
Colombian Crude
--Vetra to transport 6,000 barrels per day.
(Updates with comments from Ecuador's Minister and some details,
starting at fourth paragraph.)
By Mercedes Alvaro
QUITO, Ecuador--Crude oil from southern Colombia could begin
flowing through Ecuador's OCP pipeline as early as next week under
an agreement signed Wednesday between the pipeline operator and
Colombian producer Vetra Exploracion y Produccion SA, a pipeline
company official said.
Oleoducto de Crudos Pesados Ecuador SA manages the country's
privately owned heavy-crude pipeline, known by its Spanish acronym
as OCP.
The agreement with Vetra is the first of about 10 agreements
expected to be signed with Colombian producers that could include
state-run oil firm Ecopetrol SA (EC, ECOPETROL.BO).
"The first barrel from Vetra could be transported next week. The
agreement allows [Vetra] to transport oil when the company needs,
according its necessities," Andres Mendizabal, OCP's chief
executive, told Dow Jones Newswires.
The agreement with Vetra is part of a strategy to begin using
part of the available capacity on the 503-kilometer (312-mile)
heavy-crude pipeline to transport, in the first phase, about 15,000
barrels of oil per day from the Amazonian oil fields of southern
Colombia to the OCP terminal in the Ecuadorian port of Esmeraldas
by August.
In a second phase, according to OCP officials, the pipeline
could transport about 40,000 barrels per day from 10 Colombian
producers and in a third phase, probably in a couple of years, more
than 200,000 barrels per day. Currently the OCP pipeline only
transports Ecuadorian crude.
Currently Colombia produces about one million of barrels of oil
per day, twice what Ecuador produces.
Ecuador's Nonrenewable Natural Resources Minister Wilson Pastor
said Colombia has trouble transporting crude oil from Putumayo due
to its lack of infrastructure and the agreement to transport
Colombian crude will benefit both Colombia and Ecuador.
Tom Delfino Resmik, an official from Vetra, after the signing of
the respective contract, said the company plans to transport 6,000
barrels of crude oil per day through the OCP.
The tariff that Colombian oil producer should pay to Ecuador is
$3.40 per barrel, according to Minister Pastor.
The OCP is one of the Andean nation's two main oil pipelines.
The other is the state-owned pipeline know as SOTE, an older
pipeline that transports about 360,000 barrels per day of a lighter
form of crude.
OCP's shareholders are Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY); Spain's
Repsol (REP); Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR), or Petrobras;
France's Perenco Corp.; Italy's ENI SpA (E); and China's Andes
Petroleum.
The OCP is one of the Andean nation's two main oil pipelines and
provides the country with an alternative to the SOTE, an older,
state-owned pipeline that transports a lighter form of crude.
OCP's shareholders are Occidental Petroleum Corp. (OXY); Spain's
Repsol (REP); Brazil's Petroleo Brasileiro (PBR), or Petrobras;
France's Perenco Corp.; Italy's ENI SpA (E); and China's Andes
Petroleum.
The OCP pipeline will become state property after 20 years of
operation beginning in 2003.
Write to Mercedes Alvaro at mercedes.alvaro@dowjones.com
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