QUITO, May 19 (Reuters) - Ecuador could sell directly 1.4 million barrels of oil seized from French oil company Perenco over a debt dispute, Oil Minister Derlis Palacios said on Tuesday.
"We are looking for ways of selling it directly," Palacios told a local radio station. "One option is to sell it to Venezuela."
Ecuador got no bids for an auction of Perenco's oil after a foreign court ordered the OPEC-member nation to halt the sale. Ecuador wants to collect more than $300 million the company owns the state over a controversial windfall tax.
Palacios said the government is investigating whether Perenco pressured buyers to halt their bids in the auction and if the charge is proved the state will take "strong resolutions against the company."
He did not say what actions the government could take against Perenco, but in the past Ecuador has threatened to terminate its deals with companies over contractual rows.
Ecuador seized part of Perenco's production in March after the government failed to reach an agreement with the company to settle the pending debt.
Perenco launched an international suit against Ecuador and Petroecuador last year to dispute the legality of the windfall tax it argues violates its contract.
Perenco extracts around 27,000 barrels per day from the Coca-Payamino oilfield and blocks 7 and 21 in Ecuador's Amazon jungle.
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