QUITO, March 3 (Reuters) - Pumping of heavy crude has
resumed on Ecuador's OCP pipeline, its private operator said on
Friday, after work was finished on tubing affected by the
collapse of a nearby bridge last week.
Both state-run Petroecuador and private OCP Ecuador
suspended operations on their respective pipelines to avoid
possible environmental effects after the bridge over the Marker
River, in the Amazon province of Napo, collapsed.
The country declared force majeure on its oil operations and
exports because of the incident, rescheduling shipments of
crude.
Pumping resumed late on Thursday, OCP said in a statement.
Petroecuador resumed pumping oil along its SOTE pipeline on
Wednesday and restarted its Shushufindi polyduct the next day.
Petroecuador has said it will construct an eighth variant of
tubing for the SOTE, which can transport up to 360,000 barrels
per day, and a sixth for the polyduct, in an effort to head off
further problems.
The SOTE and OCP pipelines are regularly halted because of
tubing damage from rocks and landslides, but this most recent
incident occurred at a different location than ones in 2020 and
2021.
(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia
Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb)
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