Amazon oil spill in Ecuador was 6,300 barrels
Amazon oil spill in Ecuador was 6,300 barrels
An oil spill caused by a ruptured pipeline in Ecuador's part of the Amazon leaked almost 6,300 barrels into an environmental reserve, according to information given on Wednesday by the company that owns the conduit.
The firm OCP said it had "collected and reinjected 5,300 barrels of crude into the system" since the accident on Friday when a boulder fell on the pipeline in a mountainous region.
OCP said the recovered oil amounted to 84 percent of the total that leaked, which would mean around 6,300 barrels.
The oil was collected in large basins deployed as an emergency measure when there is a leak.
OCP president Jorge Vugdelija said in a statement that the company was using people and machines to "collect traces of crude found in the river."
Around 21,000 square meters of the Cayambe-Coca nature reserve has been affected by the leak.
Crude flowed into the Coca river, one of the largest in Ecuador's part of the Amazon and which serves as a water source for many riverbank communities, including indigenous ones.
The Cayambe-Coca national park is a 4,000 square kilometer area of mountains and rainforest in the Amazon basin sitting between 600 and 5,790 meters above sea level.
M.Bancroft--MC-UK
