Bogota – Colombia’s second-largest crude oil export pipeline was up and running again Thursday after the latest attack in a record-breaking campaign of bombings by Marxist rebels, the state oil company Ecopetrol said.
A company spokesman said repair work, on a section of the pipeline crippled by guerrilla saboteurs Tuesday morning, wrapped up late Wednesday night and pumping operations had resumed shortly afterward.
The pipeline was blown up a record 79 times in 1999 by rebels protesting what they see as excessive foreign involvement in Colombia’s oil industry. But in this year’s intensified sabotage campaign, guerrilla bombs have knocked it out of action at least 87 times.
The 220,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) capacity pipeline carries crude from the Cano Limon field, operated by U.S.-based Occidental Petroleum Corp (NYSE:OXY – news) in northeast Arauca province, to the Caribbean lifting terminal of Covenas.
The Ecopetrol spokesman said production from the field, currently targeted at about 115,000 bpd, had not been affected by the latest pipeline outage because there was adequate on-site crude storage capacity.
