<article><p class="lead">The largest oil pipeline in Ecuador, the 450,000 b/d OCP line, restarted late yesterday after 11 days offline due to two ruptures caused by rockslides.</p><p>The consortium of private producers that operates the 301 mile-long pipeline said today that it finished repair work of the two ruptures and that the structure is receiving and pumping crude normally. </p><p>On 28 January, the OCP pipeline started to leak at the Piedra Fina zone of Ecuador's Napo province when heavy rains triggered the rockslide, spilling about 6,300 bl. Around 5,300 bl were recovered and stored for export. </p><p>The spill covered 16,913m² in the Cayambe-Coca national reserve in Napo province, and some nearby communities had to stop drinking water since the oil reached small rivers. OCP delivered 120,000 l of drinking water to the communities.</p><p>Four days after the first break, OCP found a second rupture caused by heavy rains in the same zone, but oil did not spill since the pipeline was shut down.</p><p>The company said despite the two breaks, OCP still received and stored crude in its facilities, and later transported it through tankers. </p><p>The shutdown of the pipeline triggered a decrease in Ecuador's oil production, from 493,115 b/d on 31 January to 416,127 b/d on 4 February, according to the Energy Regulatory Agency of Ecuador (ARC) data. Since then production has been recovering, but the output from fields such as ITT dropped to zero for several days.</p><p>The 450,000 b/d OCP pipeline pumped an average of 152,260 b/d in 2021, according to data from state-owned PetroEcuador. </p><p>The line had a 20-day shutdown in December 2021 due to the erosion of nearby riverbeds that threatened to rupture it.</p><p>Pipeline outages like these will hinder Ecuador's goal of 580,000 b/d of oil production in 2022. </p><p class="bylines">By Alberto Araujo</p></article>
