Ecuador monitoring oil leak threatening river in Amazon

Ecuador said it was monitoring the progress of an operation to clean up an oil leak in the Amazon jungle that threatens to pollute a river.

Heavy rains caused a mudslide at Piedra Fina in the eastern Napo province on Friday.

A rock struck and ruptured an oil pipeline resulting in the leak of a "huge quantity" of oil, a ministry official said on Saturday.

The environment ministry said on Sunday that it was continuing to "verify that the contingency, cleaning and remediation activities in the affected area are being carried out adequately."

Owner OCP Ecuador said on Sunday it had begun repairing the broken pipeline and that "crude oil has been collected in retention pools to be taken to the Lago Agrio station in tanker trucks."

OCP's executive president Jorge Vugdelija blamed the incident on "force majeure."

An environment ministry official said water sources had been affected by the leak, without specifying which ones.

On Saturday, the ministry said the Coca river that supplies water to several Amazon communities could be affected.

OCP's pipelines can transport up to 450,000 barrels a day from the Amazon to ports on the Pacific coast, although the company only extracted 160,000 barrels between January and November 2021.

The company said on Saturday it had suspended pumping without affecting exports.

In December, both OCP and the state SOTE company had to build alternative branches of their pipelines in Piedra Fina due to soil erosion caused by a river.

In May 2020 in the same area, a mudslide destroyed sections of both SOTE and OCP pipelines, resulting in 15,000 barrels of oil polluting three Amazon basin rivers, affecting several riverside communities.