ECUADOR SAYS WILL RESUME LIMITED OIL PRODUCTION
  Ecuador will resume limited crude output
  next week to fill up storage tanks as a first step to pump oil
  to a Colombian pipeline on May one, the state Ecuadorean
  Petroleum Corp (CEPE) said.
      CEPE manager Carlos Romoleroux told reporters that Ecuador
  would begin pumping an unspecified amount of crude in
  northeastern jungle oilfields at the end of next week in
  preparation to send the oil through a new pipeline link-up to
  neighbouring Colombia.
      Oil production in Ecuador was halted on March five when an
  earthquake damaged the country's main pipeline from Lago Agrio,
  at the heart of the Ecuadorean jungle oilfields, to the pacific
  port of Balao.
      It will take at least until the end of July to repair the
  pipeline and return output to normal levels. The country was
  pumping between 245,000 bpd and 250,000 bpd before the tremor.
      To resume limited output in the meantime, Ecuador is
  constructing a 26 mile pipeline linkup, capable of carrying
  55,000 bpd, from Lago Agrio to Puerto Colon, the starting point
  of Colombia's pipeline to the Pacific port of Tumaco.
      The original target date to resume limited crude output was
  May eight, the scheduled date for the inauguration of the Lago
  Agrio to Puerto Colon pipeline, an energy ministry spokesman
  said.
  

