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Above: Rafael Correa, President of Ecuador, speaking with Abdalla Salem El-Badri, <strong>OPEC</strong><br />
Secretary General.<br />
Below: The <strong>OPEC</strong> Secretary General (c), Members of the visiting Secretariat team and Ecuadorean<br />
officials take time out for a photo call.<br />
<strong>OPEC</strong> bulletin 6/08<br />
8<br />
Ecuadorian Ministry of Mines and Petroleum<br />
Esam Al Khalifa<br />
will help in reducing the amount of carbon dioxide emissions<br />
that go into the atmosphere. Another reason for the<br />
Ecuadorean government’s action is that it wants to protect<br />
the inhabitants of the Yasuni area, who have expressed<br />
a desire to be left untainted by modern civilization, from<br />
the encroachment of modernity. This desire can only be<br />
respected if their land is not opened up for oil exploitation.<br />
Government responsibility<br />
The government’s desire to respect the wishes of the<br />
people notwithstanding, it also has a responsibility to<br />
the vast population of the country — the responsibility<br />
to provide them with social services. This responsibility<br />
can better be fulfilled with resources, which are plentiful<br />
in the Yasuni. The government is therefore calling on the<br />
international community to support it by providing some<br />
of what it is going to forego as a result of not exploiting<br />
its natural resources. The Yasuni area is one of the many<br />
areas with oil deposits. The government is now concentrating<br />
on the other areas, one of which is Block 15, a<br />
90-minute helicopter flight from Quito, the capital.<br />
Conducting the Secretary General round the facilities<br />
at Block 15, General Manager, Engineer Ramiro Cazar,<br />
said the facility, which serves as a collection point for<br />
dozens of wells in the block, also has the capacity to produce<br />
diesel. He explained that there are plans to expand<br />
operations with a view to boosting production.<br />
In a meeting with the Ecuadorean President, Rafael<br />
Correa, El-Badri welcomed Ecuador back to the <strong>OPEC</strong><br />
fold as a full Member, assuring the President that the<br />
Secretariat is, at all times, ready to provide whatever<br />
assistance it can to Ecuador’s oil industry. President<br />
Correa welcomed El-Badri and called on the Organization<br />
to help sell the idea of the Yasuni-ITT project to the international<br />
community, while assuring him of the continuous<br />
support of Ecuador to <strong>OPEC</strong>.<br />
Secretariat presentations<br />
The <strong>OPEC</strong> delegation made presentations to staff of the<br />
state oil company, Petroecuador, and the Ministry of<br />
Mines and Petroleum at the Ministry’s headquarters.<br />
While Esam Al Khalifa of the <strong>OPEC</strong> Secretariat’s Petroleum<br />
Market Analysis Department presented a paper on the<br />
current oil market situation, Fuad Al-Zayer spoke on the<br />
importance of data to <strong>OPEC</strong> research activities. Dr Omar<br />
Farouk Ibrahim, Head of the Secretariat’s Public Relations
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