(Bloomberg) -- Ecuador's state-owned oil company Petroecuador was forced to declare force majeure on its crude exports, and U.S. West Coast refiners could be the ones hurt the most.
Protests in Ecuador over fuel prices have temporarily shut some oilfields, slowing the flow of crude and causing Petroecuador to shut a key pipeline. While the nation's exports aren't huge at just 315,000 barrels a day in September, almost half of that goes to refineries in California and Washington state, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.
READ: Ecuador Crude Exports At 20-Month Low in Sept.
Marathon Petroleum Corp.'s Los Angeles and San Francisco-area refineries took a combined 59,000 barrels a day in July, U.S. Energy Information Administration data show. Chevron Corp. and Valero Energy Corp. were the next biggest buyers. Exports to China and Chile, which had been the second- and third-largest buyers, fell in September.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Marino in New York at dmarino4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Marino at dmarino4@bloomberg.net, Mike Jeffers
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