Ecuador Wants $3.5 Billion To Keep Amazonian Oil Underground -
Min
LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Ecuador wants $3.5 billion as compensation for not
extracting crude from an Amazonian reserve, the country's foreign minister said
Tuesday, with Germany offering $50 million a year if other nations join in.
Speaking at a press briefing, Fander Falconi said Ecuador "is ready to get $
3.5 billion" from the international community in exchange for not extracting oil
from Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini oilfields in the Yasuni national park.
He said the amount represented half of about $7 billion of value, based on
current prices in the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme. Ecuador's own "
contribution is 50% of those earnings," Falconi said.
The minister said the country wants to secure $350 million--its first annual
instalment--by the end of 2010. Ecuador wants the funding for at least a decade.
Falconi said there is no deadline for obtaining the financing but if it isn't
forthcoming "sooner or later Ecuador would be forced to think about" extracting
oil from the park.
Ecuador's Environment minister Marcela Aguinaga Vallejo said Germany had
pledged $50 million a year for 13 years, conditional to the creation of a trust
fund for the project and that other countries join.
Web site: http://www.yasuni-itt.gov.ec
-By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 20 7842 9266; benoit.faucon@
dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
10-27-091207ET
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