Ecuador's largest refinery to get overhaul
The Esmeraldas Refinery, Ecuador's largest refinery, will undergo a complete overhaul as soon as state-owned
PetroEcuador and South Korea's SK-E&C sign an agreement.
A complete renovation of the refinery will cost some $ 187 mm but will increase daily output to 110,000 bpd, or an
improvement of 20 %.
The Esmeraldas Refinery, located in the north-western province of the same name, has been unable to operate at full
capacity in recent years due to the failure of some systems.
The refinery, which was constructed in 1977 and underwent an upgrade in the late 1980s, has been experiencing
problems with its catalytic and non-catalytic units, vapour system and water treatment system, among others, due to
obsolescence.
Ecuador, the fifth-largest oil producer in Latin America, has output of some 550,000 bpd of crude, with some 55 % of
that production coming from state-owned PetroEcuador and the rest from about a dozen foreign companies that operate
in the Andean nation.
Oil is Ecuador's mainexport product and revenues from its sale finance about 35 % of government spending.
