The route is a substantial part of the project. This is why we maintain that this is the route. Diaz said the company tried to focus the study on the areas surrounding Mindo, and will respond to the ministry's comments that the study lacks details on forests located to the south. The consortium, which signed a contract to build the pipeline in February, is made up of Alberta Energy, Agip Petroleum, Kerr McGee, Occidental Petroleum, Repsol-YPF, Perez Companc and Argentine construction firm Techint. Ecuador currently has only one pipeline, with a maximum capacity of 400,000 bpd, for state and private production.
Oil is the South American country's biggest export.
Among the consortium's main funders is Citigroup - the world's most destructive bank. As the number one funder of oil pipelines around the world it is no surprise to find Citi playing a central role with yet another massive, destructive fossil fuel project. The pipeline would transport heavy crude from the country's eastern rainforest region to the Pacific Coast, placing fragile ecosystems and dozens of communities along the 300-mile route in jeopardy. The pipeline route chosen by the OCP consortium affects 11 protected areas, and cuts through the middle of the Mindo Nambillo Cloudforest Reserve and the surrounding ecologically sensitive forests. In order to fill the new pipeline, Ecuador would have to double its current oil production, setting off an unprecedented boom in new oil exploration that could lead to the irreversible loss and destruction of some the country's last remaining old growth rainforest and territories of isolated indigenous peoples.