PetroEcuador burns crude to power Yasuni fields

PetroEcuador has started testing 20 converted crude-fired thermoelectric generators with total capacity of 23MW to supply electricity to its oil operations in block 43 near Ecuador's border with Peru.

Full operations should start next week. The operation in the Ishpingo, Tambococha and Tiputini (ITT) fields in Orellana province is meant to reduce Ecuador's diesel imports, which have soared for thermoelection generation this year because of a drought that has reduced hydropower generation.

The generators that had burned diesel to supply power to the fields since 2018 were converted to consume crude in a project by state-power utility Celec together with the generators' manufacturer, Petroecuador said. The conversion will replace consumption of about 770 b/d of imported diesel in the generators, Celec said.

All thermoelectric plants in Ecuador consumed an average of 11,170 b/d of diesel from January-February 2023, in the South American country, up by 700pc compared with January-February 2022, when an average of 1,400 b/d of diesel were used in thermoelectric plants, according to PetroEcuador.

But environmental groups argue that the use of either diesel- or crude-fired thermoelectric plants is illegal in the ITT since the fields are in the Yasuni national reserve.

Pedro Bermeo, representative of the environmental group Yasunidos — which is pushing a referendum to prevent crude production in Yasuni — said that the national assembly authorized oil activity in block 43 only if low-environmental impact measure are used. Power should be generated outside the Yasuni and transmitted over underground lines, he said.

Instead the generators are affecting the environment and indigenous communities in the area have complained of noise and emissions since production began in the ITT in 2016, Bermeo said.

In March, production of electricity in hydroelectric plants represented 90pc of the 2,673 GWh of electricity produced by the national grid, up from 75pc in February and 60-63pc in the last weeks of December.

By Alberto Araujo