U.S. West Coast Refiners Most Exposed to Ecuador Oil Exports
Demonstrators light a fire during a protest in the Historic Center neighborhood of Quito, Ecuador on Oct. 9.
Photographer: David Diaz Arcos/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Ecuador’s state-owned oil company Petroecuador was forced to declare force majeure on its crude exports, and U.S. West Coast refiners could be the ones hurt the most.
Protests in Ecuador over fuel prices have temporarily shut some oilfields, slowing the flow of crude and causing Petroecuador to shut a key pipeline. While the nation’s exports aren’t huge at just 315,000 barrels a day in September, almost half of that goes to refineries in California and Washington state, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.