Vice-President of Ecuador supports use of associated gas in Amazon region of Ecuador and says it’s a landmark in Russian-Ecuadorian cooperation

This joint venture is mentioned in a memorandum of the Russian - Ecuadorian Intergovernmental Committee on Trade and Economic Cooperation, with special emphasis on the capability of OOO Premium Engineering to supply the highest standard of heat-and-power engineering and compression machinery for gas processing, as well as the latest technology in design, construction and assembly operations.
Ecuador has repeated its commitment to guarantee finance to OOO Premium Engineering as well as to develop associated petroleum gas. Petroecuador has for its part, confirmed an interest in acquiring the respective credit.
The Ministry of Finance of Ecuador has approved the project budget estimate, equal to US $ 96 million, of which 70% is to be financed under the auspices of Roseksimbank within the framework of the Russian Federation promotion program for industrial exports.
According to Vice President Moreno,“Together, in a project designed to develop our naturual resources to the full, we are combining commercial common sense with a commitment to safeguard the environment. One can only regret that Ecuador did not exploit its natural resources in the proper manner in the past. I hope that the cooperation between Petroecuador and OOO Premium Engineering will become a model of cooperation between our two countries.”
The main purpose of the project is to produce additional electricity and to replace the scarce energy resources of Ecuador with a more affordable and environmentally clean gas fuel. At the moment expensive diesel fuel and crude oil are being used for the fueling of electric power stations. In due course they will be replaced by a dry gas to be produced at the Shushufindi petroleum refinery as a result of the optimization plan.
Alexandra Bocharova, CEO of OOO Premium Engineering says, “For a while now Russia and Ecuador have been drawing closer together. Both our governments pay close attention to the increasing need to use associated gas. Both our companies, Premium Engineering and Petroecuador, are aware of the need to protect the environment. Once we have modernized the equipment currently used in Ecuador, we expect to see a considerable decrease in the discharge of environmentally hazardousn greenhouse gases. An added bonus will be the production of a stable gas condensate which will improve the properties of crude oil and increase its production.”