Ecuador advances with merger of state oil companies

Ecuador is close to sealing the merger of state oil companies Petroecuador and Petroamazonas.

“The process is about to be completed … The respective agreement will be signed in the next few days," an anonymous source in the Ecuadoran government told BNamericas.

While the legal and technical teams are preparing the decree that will finalize the merger, the bidding rules are being prepared for a tender to hire a consultancy firm to be in charge of optimizing the new company.

With the merger, President Lenín Moreno intends to give administrative, financial and economic autonomy to the resulting state oil company so it can offer services, even abroad.

The source added that once the merger is complete, the international tender for consulting services will be called. The original deadlines of the process had to be modified because of the pandemic.

IDB will provide financing for the consultancy's work.

Petroecuador, which operates in the midstream and downstream segments, and upstream operator Petroamazonas have assets of around US$22bn and a combined workforce of some 11,000.