ECUADOR TO USE COLOMBIA OIL LINK FOR FIVE YEARS
  Ecuador will use a new pipeline link
  with Colombia to export crude oil for the next five years,
  Colombian mines and energy minister Guillermo Perry said.
      The link will be inaugurated on May 8. It was built to
  allow Ecuador to resume exports of crude oil halted on March 5
  by earthquake damage to its Lago Agrio to Balao pipeline,
      Once that pipeline is repaired, Ecuador will exceed its
  OPEC quota in order to offset lost income and pay debts
  contracted with Venezuela and Nigeria since the quake, Ecuador
  mines and energy minister Javier Espinosa said.
      The two ministers were speaking at a news conference after
  signing an agreement for joint oil exploration and exploitation
  of the jungle border zone between the two nations. Drilling
  will begin in September.
      "The agreement to transport Ecuadorean crude oil is not only
  for this emergency period but for the next five years, with
  possibility of an extension. Between 20,000 and 50,000 barrels
  per day (bpd) will be pumped along it," Perry said.
      Espinosa said Ecuador planned to pump 35 mln barrels
  through the link in the next five years, at a cost of 75 cents
  per barrel during the first year.
      The 43-km link, with a maximum capacity of 50,000 bpd, will
  run from Lago Agrio, the centre of of Ecuador's jungle
  oilfields, to an existing Colombian pipeline that runs to the
  Pacific port of Tumaco.
      Espinosa said the 32-km stretch of the link built on the
  Ecuadorean side cost 10.5 mln dlrs. Perry gave no figures for
  Colombia's 11 km segment but said it was "insignificant compared
  with what we are going to earn."
      OPEC member Ecuador was pumping around 250,000 bpd before
  the quake. Lost exports of 185,000 bpd are costing it 90 mln
  dlrs per month, Espinosa said.
  

