Woes mount for oil firms in Ecuador

No one said running a multinational company was easy. But for energy firms that depend on the steady flow of oil and gas from remote, often unstable, parts of the world, just keeping the pipelines secure can be a feat.

…Protecting oil installations here calls for robust security measures, but recently publicized contracts mapping oil industry ties to the Ecuadorean military have raised concerns in a country where populism runs deep and three presidents in the past decade have been forced out of office amid popular unrest.

The contracts highlight the troubles facing many multinational energy companies as they seek to diversify drilling sources away from the Middle East and into countries where extractive industries have been linked to environmental and human rights concerns. Critics here say the rarely seen documents – some of which detail company mandates for soldiers to conduct countersurveillance operations on the local population – are proof that Ecuador’s military is a private army for oil firms.

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