QUITO (AP) — Ecuador will increase oil production by about 40,000 barrels a day through December of this year, or 8.36 percent, and will put the state’s network of fuel stations up for sale through auction, the energy minister said Tuesday.
In statements to the Ecuavisa television network, Minister Juan Carlos Bermeo stressed that to comply with President Guillermo Lasso’s decision to increase oil production “we have set ourselves a first goal, which is an additional 40,000 barrels until December and for that we are working intensively.”
He said that drilling work is being carried out in different oil fields in the Amazon “but always with environmental and social responsibility. It’s not about destroying the environment… it is about providing the resources of oil extraction for the development of the country.”
