Petroecuador will modernize its pumping stations and improve its environmental management with a $58 million loan approved by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
The project will support the company’s Transport and Storage Division in modernizing the transportation system for refined products. The IDB loan will help finance investments to modernize four pumping stations on the Esmeraldas-Quito multiproduct pipeline, which carries 45 percent of the company’s piped products.
The Bank will help finance the replacement of existing pumps with the latest generation of equipment that is more energy efficient, the upgrading of the electrical, mechanical, instrumentation, and control systems and the supplementary civil works that will be carried out on the property of the stations.
The investments in the pumping stations will help to increase capacity to supply the northern and central parts of the country; reduce the operating costs of pumping and increase energy efficiency by replacing the diesel motors with electric ones; and reduce emissions and sound pollution from the diesel motors.
The IDB will support investments to improve environmental management at the pumping stations. The Bank will back measures to extract, transport, and treat the sludge from the bottom of hydrocarbon tanks in four storage ponds at Santo Domingo. It will also help finance the construction of a new covered pond to ensure proper handling of the sludge before it is transported and treated; and works to improve the effluent treatment system in the ponds at the four pumping stations (Esmeraldas, Santo Domingo, Faisanes, and El Corazón).
Expected results include:
- Increase in carrying capacity of Esmeraldas-Stanto Domingo pipeline of as much as 28 percent; and in the Santo Domingo-Quito pipeline of about 68 percent;
- Reduction of as much as 50 percent in energy costs from pumping;
- Elimination of hazardous waste in the four existing storage ponds at the Santo Domingo pumping station;
- Elimination of contaminated soil around the four storage ponds containing hazardous waste.
The loan is for a 25-year term, with a three-year grace period and a Libor-based interest rate. Petroecuador will provide $24.8 million in counterpart funds.