ECUADOR CRUDE OIL EXPORTS STOPPED FOR FIVE MONTHS

  Ecuador needs 120 mln dlrs to repair the
  damage to its oil export pipeline caused by last week"s
  earthquake, which will stop crude exports for five months,
  energy and mines minister Javier Espinosa Teran said.
      Espinosa said yesterday the pipeline, which carries crude
  from jungle fields to the Pacific Ocean coast of Balao, would
  be repaired with the help of Texaco Inc &lt;TX.N> and a Mexican
  and an Argentine firm.
      President Leon Febres Cordero said two days ago that
  Ecuador, an OPEC member, would have to suspend crude exports
  for four months due to the quake.
      Oil traditionally accounts for up to two-thirds of
  Ecuador's total exports and as much as 60 pct of government
  revenues.
      Deputy energy minister Fernando Santos Alvite said Ecuador
  would have to import six to seven mln barrels of crude oil to
  meet its needs until the line was repaired.
      The Ecuadorean minister at the Presidency, Patricio
  Quevedo, told reporters that Venezuela will lend Ecuador five
  mln barrels of crude, which would repaid in kind after a
  180-day period.
      He added the Caracas-based Andean Development Corp had
  granted a loan of 11.7 mln dlrs towards repairing the pipeline,
  50 km of which had been damaged in the quake.
      In Quito, Foreign Minister Rafael Garcia Velasco yesterday
  summoned ambassadors from about 40 countries to whom he issued
  appeal for emergency aid for the country. Only three countries,
  the U.S., Colombia and Venezuela, had offered assistance.
  

