By Reuters Staff
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QUITO, June 25 (Reuters) - Ecuador’s state oil company Petroecuador said on Friday it had reached an agreement with an indigenous community to end a protest that had been blocking access to one of its largest oil fields in the Amazon region.
The indigenous Kichwa El Eden community began blocking access to the Block 12 Eden-Yuturi facilities on May 10 to demand a new contract over compensation to nearby residents after a previous deal inspired. Petroecuador on June 4 declared force majeure at the field, which normally produces around 28,500 barrels per day (bpd) of crude.
Petroecuador said in a statement that as part of the deal to lift the roadblock, it would within 60 days sign a five-year agreement with the community to provide social benefits for some 1,000 people living in the oil field’s so-called area of influence.
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WASHINGTON, June 24 (Reuters) - The infrastructure deal struck by a group of bipartisan senators and President Joe Biden on Thursday is partially funded by a $6 billion sale from the U.S. emergency oil reserve, according to a document circulated by Republican lawmakers.
A sale of that size equals a drawdown of about 82 million barrels, based on Thursday’s price of $73 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate crude. That represents a sale of about 13% of the reserve’s current holdings of nearly 624 million barrels of oil, though if prices rise, the volume of oil would shrink.
The deal was a step forward for the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Senate deal, but the battle is not over. Democrats are also working on a companion bill that will include more money to address climate fixes, but could only be passed on a party line vote in a process called reconciliation.
Latin America is investing too little in a green economic recovery from COVID-19, with only 2% of the region's stimulus funds being spent on projects that help fight climate change, new data from Oxford University showed on Thursday.