Page 13 - LatAmOil Week 43 2021

LatAmOil ECUADOR LatAmOil

This sum would only cover the costs stemming by questions about of overdue payments to Rep-
from severance payments to workers and the sol and the other shareholders in the two blocks.
return of the acreage to the state, he said. According to Arata, Quito has accumulated
Arata did not say when New Stratus expected $120mn in arrears under the existing service
to wrap up discussions with Repsol or the Ecua- contracts, under which it is obligated to pay $38
dorean government. For its part, Repsol said for every barrel of oil extracted from Block 16
that the proposed sale to the Canadian company and $29 for every barrel lifted from Block 67.
was in line with plans for streamlining its portfo- The country’s current government, headed by
lio, but did not comment further. President Guillermo Lasso, is likely to approve
Meanwhile, Ecuador’s Energy Minister Juan the sale if the debts can be resolved, Argus Media
Carlos Bermeo told Argus Media that his min- commented.
istry was still assessing New Stratus’ request for Equity in Blocks 16 and 67 is currently split
permission to buy stakes in Blocks 16 and 67. 35% to Repsol, the operator; 34% to an alliance
Under Ecuador’s current legal regime, the deal formed by two state-owned Chinese companies,
cannot go through without the approval of the Sinopec and Sinochem; and 31% to Taiwan’s
Energy Ministry. national oil company (NOC), China Petroleum
The progress of negotiations may be affected Corp. (CPC). ™

PERU
Petroperu aims to resume

oil extraction by year-end

PERU’S national oil company (NOC) Petroperu next few weeks. The NOC described this project
is aiming to restart crude production by the end as a joint endeavour but did not elaborate.
of this year as it seeks feedstock for the Talara The company’s announcement is in line with
refinery, officials in Lima have said. statements made by Peru’s socialist President
Petroperu has been focused largely on mid- Pedro Castillo, who took office earlier this year.
stream and downstream operations – that is, Castillo declared after his inauguration that
on oil refining, transportation, storage and Petroperu would return to upstream operations
sales – for at least the last two decades. How- for the first time since the 1990s, when the NOC
ever, the NOC is now saying it expects to unloaded some of its oilfields following partial
resume upstream oil production on December privatisation.
27, though the details have yet to be finalised, Peru saw domestic oil production decline last
according to a Reuters report. year, as a number of blocks were closed during
The company’s first target will be Lot I, an oil- the height of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pan-
field in the northern region of Piura, close to the demic. The sites that were taken offline included
Talara refinery, the news agency said last week. Blocks 8, 67, 192, 95, Z-1 and Z-2, all of which
(Talara is Peru’s second-largest oil-process- saw no production at all in certain months of
ing plant, based on production. It has a design 2020.
capacity of 62,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is Last year’s decline was in line with long-term
currently undergoing an expansion project that trends. Peru’s crude oil output levels have been
may boost the country’s total refining capacity declining since the 1990s, and yields are cur-
by 50%.) rently only around one quarter of what they
Petroperu has stressed that initial oil pro- were in the 1980s. ™
duction levels would be low, since Lot I contains
limited amounts of crude. It has also pointed
out, though, that the return to upstream opera-
tions “represents an important milestone.”
Meanwhile, it added, the government is
expected to authorise the signing of a contract
that will allow Petroperu to extract crude from
another deposit known as Lot 192 within the

Week 43 28•October•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13