The oilfields of Ecuador’s Amazon have been called a curse by local leaders. The northern provinces of Sucumbíos, Orellana and Pastaza sit atop the country’s richest petroleum deposits, but residents say the boon has been ravaged by oil wealth and political corruption in Ecuador.
This investigation by Ekalavya Hansaj examines years of data, documents and testimonies to reveal how the Amazon’s oil wealth has become entwined with fraud and environmental ruin.
We track the web from President Rafael Correa’s “oil-fueled” development era through Guillermo Lasso’s anti-graft crusade, up to the current administration’s contested drilling plans. Our findings confirm an often-repeated refrain: far from prosperity, these provinces suffer the legacy of spills, empty treasuries and half-built promises.
Snapshot of Amazon Oil Wealth and Political Corruption in Ecuador
Production: Ecuador’s Amazon fields in Sucumbíos, Orellana and Pastaza produce roughly 480,000 barrels per day as of 2025. (Output peaked above 530,000 bpd in 2011 but has since declined.)
Economic Role: Oil exports once accounted for about 30–40% of national revenue, making petroleum the country’s top export.
Operators: Historically led by state-owned Petroecuador, with major joint ventures. Chinese state firms (CNPC and Sinopec, through Andes Petroleum and Ecuacorriente) now control many Amazonian blocks. Foreign majors (Occidental, Repsol, etc.) have also participated.
Spills & Waste: Thousands of spills have been recorded since the 1990s. Decades of production left 3,568 known contamination sites nationwide, with over 1,100 pits in Orellana and Sucumbíos. Independent audits found Petroecuador caused 96.5% of Ecuador’s oil spills in 2021–22.
Notable Scandals: Major corruption cases include oil-for-loans kickbacks with China, Petroecuador no-bid contract bribes, and investigations of late-2022 graft rings. In 2020, Ecuador’s Supreme Court convicted ex-president Rafael Correa and allies of a multimillion-dollar election financing racket.
Human Toll: Despite the oil revenue, poverty rates in Sucumbíos and Orellana remain among Ecuador’s highest. Residents and lawyers report cancer clusters, miscarriages and contaminated water in mining camps, outcomes they trace directly to oil pollution. Notably, in 2023 59% of Ecuadorians voted to keep the Yasuní rainforest’s oil in the ground, reflecting a fierce backlash against decades of broken environmental promises.
History of Extraction and Contamination
Oil exploration began in Ecuador’s Amazon with Texaco’s first well in 1967. By 1972 the military government celebrated joining OPEC and fast-tracked the Trans-Ecuadorian Oil Pipeline (SOTE) to export fields to the Esmeraldas refinery.
But Texaco’s legacy proved disastrous. Environmental ministry data show Texaco alone caused 1,107 documented waste sites, 608 in Orellana and 499 in Sucumbíos out of 3,568 total contamination sources recorded nationwide. Only about 51% of all these pits and spill sites have ever been cleaned up. Worse, audits find at least 714 buried oil pools left by Texaco that later re-emerged as poison springs.
Even today these orphan wells and pipelines haunt the region. In Shushufindi (Sucumbíos) villagers point out a decades-old well with oil still weeping from its joints. Inside the jungle, rusted pipeline “noodles” lie abandoned on riverbanks, said to heat to “scorching temperatures,” a permanent fire hazard. Official reports document countless spills: for example, Petroecuador’s own data show it caused 96.5% of Ecuador’s oil spills in 2021–22.
The AmazonWatch research group found that Petroecuador inherited over 700 still-abandoned pits from Chevron and Texaco that it is “responsible for remediating”, most of which are not yet cleaned up.
Petroecuador officials have sometimes tallied interim fixes like bulldozing oil-soaked earth and planting grass and then reported it as “remediated.” But residents see those solutions as cosmetic. They still swim in open streams darkened by crude, or draw water with a smell of fuel.
One mountain of summary data tells the same story: a 2023 Comptroller’s review put Petroecuador’s own cleanup numbers at about 1.44 million cubic meters of soil and tens of thousands of barrels of oil recovered (2013–22), but noted “prioritization methodologies are being developed” to identify hotspots, implying many remain.
Meanwhile the old pipes keep leaking. A Mongabay news investigation in 2023 found that at one well drilled in 1969 and never properly capped, oil continues to seep openly onto the ground decades later.
Petroecuador crews clean a crude oil spill from an Amazonian river. Official data confirm that nearly all recent spills in Ecuador’s Amazon have been from state operations, a legacy of chronic underinvestment in safety. Ministry records also show only half of old oil waste sites have been remediated.
The Petroamerica Pipeline and Spills
Another major source of harm has been the aging pipeline infrastructure. The 483-km SOTE pipeline was originally built quickly and cheaply, often laid over fault lines and without safety shutoff valves. A 2025 report by AmazonWatch noted that SOTE passes through active fault zones and mountainous terrain, and was laid above ground without secondary containment.
The result has been a drumbeat of disasters: a 2023 rupture spilled 20,000 barrels into a reservoir along its route (later cleaned up), while a 2025 failure of a side-line leaked 100,000 barrels of oil into the Coca River. Environmental auditors cite “chronic negligence” in pipeline maintenance and disaster planning – with insufficient funds allocated for upkeep.
Meanwhile, fuel transported off the main pipeline frequently goes by tanker truck on precarious jungle roads. Dozens of accidents are reported annually. Locals recall one 2010 tanker crash in Orellana that ignited a fireball, killing two workers; few compensation checks were ever collected. Petitions for more safety valves and monitoring by satellite have gone unanswered by officials.
Boom, Bust, and the “Resource Curse”
In tandem with these environmental woes, Ecuador’s leaders treated Amazon oil as an economic boon. In the late 1990s, with prices high, several administrations took on debt as though the oil would never run out. Rafael Correa (2007–2017) arrived promising a socialist “Citizens’ Revolution” partly financed by petroleum. He nationalized some oil contracts and used the windfall to expand education, health and infrastructure. But Correa also turned to China to finance that expansion.
Between 2010 and 2016, he agreed to $15 billion in Chinese loans, to be repaid in oil at high interest. Internal leaks later revealed corrupt kickbacks in these deals: Ecuador’s state refineries were ordered to send cheap oil to Chinese partners, who in turn resold it at profit while agents skimmed money into offshore bank accounts. A 2016 AmazonWatch investigation exposed that two middlemen had siphoned roughly $1 per barrel on one such oil-backed loan, netting them about $70 million through shell companies.
Economists call this the resource curse: when states rely heavily on one export, every downturn triggers crisis and rent-seeking. Data bear that out globally. A 2021 study in The Guardian found that oil-exporting nations on average suffer slower growth and more corruption than resource-poor peers. Nigeria, Venezuela, and Angola, all similar to Ecuador in export profile see “livelihoods and economies devastated” by oil windfalls.
By contrast, countries like Norway, Canada or Botswana (which the same report praised) used strong institutions to avoid that trap. In Ecuador’s case, by 2014 the price shock left Correa lamenting a new austerity while interest payments on foreign debt ballooned. He then pivoted from petro-populism to tax hikes and cuts, stoking widespread street protests in 2015.
Some direct consequences of Correa’s oil policy linger. The Yasuní-ITT initiative (designed to leave 726 million barrels of oil in the ground at Yasuní) collapsed in 2013, and that oil was later approved for drilling by his successors.
Economists point out that loan-for-oil schemes implicitly mortgage national sovereignty; critics note Ecuador’s treaty with China allowed any part of the country (save embassies and military bases) to be seized if loans defaulted. The whole pattern of high spending, external borrowing, and cozy contracts for insiders sowed the next generation’s anger when corruption came to light.
Corruption in the Correa Administration
The shift from development to depletion was accompanied by scandals. In 2020, Ecuador’s National Court of Justice convicted Rafael Correa and 17 members of his administration for “aggravated passive bribery.” Prosecutors proved they had taken millions from private companies disguised as campaign contributions, in exchange for awarding public contracts.
Correa was sentenced to 8 years in prison and a 25-year ban on office (he remains abroad in exile, refusing to return). His former vice-president (2013–2017), Jorge Glas, was already jailed for six years after admitting he took $13 million from Brazilian builder Odebrecht to influence oil and transport contracts. The U.S. State Department even moved to block visas for both men in 2024, explicitly calling them “significant corruption” cases.
Other high-level figures also resigned under cloud. In 2016 Energy Minister Carlos Pareja quit after it was revealed he had approved a $17.5 million contract (for a construction project) that was actually worth only $9.3 million; the middleman, Jaime “Cadena” Baquerizo, was later convicted for taking kickbacks in that deal. Baquerizo had become notorious for currying favor through no-bid contracts.
Shortly afterward, Petroecuador’s own head Alex Bravo was jailed for granting inflated contracts to Baquerizo’s companies. In short, documents released at the time (e.g. Panama Papers sources) painted a picture of Petroecuador executives and politicians laundering tens of millions offshore. These scandals eroded public trust: even allies of Correa argued that the “entire business class” of the Guayaquil elite had offshore networks.
Nevertheless, Correa’s supporters argue these trials were politically motivated, and indeed Correa himself maintains all charges were trumped-up. In one 2024 statement he blamed his conviction on his photo with Julian Assange.
But whether motivated by justice or revenge, the effect has been clear: Correa-era graft landed several ex-officials in jail and barred from politics. For our purposes, it also sealed the Amazon oil narrative: many of those convicted had overseen contracts and policies affecting the oil provinces, and their networks included people still entrenched in government.
Petroecuador: The State Oil Company’s Troubles
After Texaco’s exit, Petroecuador took over roughly 90% of Amazon oil production. But it inherited the liabilities too – the flooded pits, the half-buried pipelines, and now an institutional culture that insiders say tolerated kickbacks. In late 2022, the company became the focus of a sweeping graft probe.
One Reuters report notes that seven people were detained in November 2022 as part of a “bribery scheme” linked to Petroecuador. Those held included former energy ministry officials and two private contractors. The attorney general’s office announced that a former official had alerted U.S. counterparts to suspicious deals, leading to cross-border coordination on the case.
Concurrent with these raids, President Lasso moved to replace the energy minister and install Fernando Santos (an oil industry lawyer) to clean house. Santos immediately announced he would audit all Petroecuador operations and hire international consultants. In January 2023, Santos asked the entire Petroecuador board to resign so he could reconstitute it.
The next month, Hugo Aguiar, the general manager of Petroecuador, abruptly resigned after police searched his home in Quitor. Aguiar’s tenure had been marked by complaints of non-payment to contractors; some investigators say he became a convenient fall guy. No charges against Aguiar have been made public, and official statements simply blamed “unfounded attacks” on the company’s leadership.
However, not all corruption inquiries were government-led. In mid-2023 the Comptroller General released a damning internal memo. It documented cases of over-invoicing and phantom contracts in Petroecuador’s branches (pipeline maintenance, supply, etc.), suggesting losses of tens of millions. One example: a pipeline expansion contract was priced at $19 million but the Comptroller estimated it should have cost $5.5 million, a difference presumably split among insiders.
The government ordered that audit sealed and never publicly released the details. Petroecuador’s own communications team refused to answer questions, even as whistleblowers whispered that the president’s father, a prominent businessman, had interests in some subcontractors.
Key Cases and Figures
For clarity, here are some of the major names and scandals identified in reporting and official documents:
Enrique Cadena and Jaime Baquerizo: Businessmen who acted as intermediaries on PetroChina oil-for-loan deals. Panama Papers revealed they skimmed about $1 per barrel on shipments, earning some $70 million. Baquerizo later was implicated in Petroecuador kickbacks and received prison time.
Alex Bravo: Former CEO of Petroecuador’s petrochemical arm, sentenced to 8.5 years in 2016 for granting Baquerizo inflated no-bid contracts.
Carlos Pareja: Correa’s Hydrocarbons Minister, who resigned after the Baquerizo contract scandal.
Luis Verdesoto: Once Lasso’s anti-graft secretary, he publicly estimated a “corruption network” in Petroecuador worth $25 million and criticized the government for inaction, then resigned in frustration in May 2023.
Rafael Correa: President (2007–2017) convicted of leading a bribery network worth $8 million, now living in exile with an 8-year sentence.
Jorge Glas: Vice-President (2013–2017), already serving 6 years for taking bribes from Odebrecht. His continued imprisonment has drawn ire, as Glas had sought asylum in the Mexican embassy before being detained.
Guillermo Lasso: President (2021–2023) who launched anti-corruption reforms but himself faced an impeachment motion (July 2023) over unrelated alleged infractions. Lasso dissolved Congress in May 2023 to thwart the bid, a dramatic move known as “muerte cruzada.” He ultimately escaped conviction, but his mix of moves left the anti-graft agenda murky.
Daniel Noboa: Ecuador’s young president (elected 2023) who campaigned on rooting out corruption, yet in 2025 pushed major new oil auctions — sparking questions about whether political pressures will curtail those projects or not. (His policies post-2023 remain in flux, as protests and legal challenges continue.)
Human and Environmental Impact
The consequences of misused oil wealth are painfully evident in Amazon communities. Health professionals and activists report skyrocketing disease rates near oil sites. For example, field surveys by the Indigenous Federation of Ecuador (FEINCE) found that cancer in Sucumbíos’ rural areas is as much as 8–10 times the national average. Many locals blame industrial water pollution.
Water testing by NGOs has detected toxins like benzene, toluene and naphthalene in river water near drilling camps. The Ministry of Health, under pressure, finally agreed in 2023 to survey the region for cancer clusters, but results have not been published.
Contamination survivor Wuilmo Moreta stands next to an oil pool leaking into the community water system. His legs bear a chronic rash which he attributes to decades of oil pollution. Moreta’s story, like those of many Amazon residents, underscores the human toll: local cancer and skin disease rates are abnormally high, yet official health data are incomplete or contradictory.
Local testimonies paint a stark picture. Juan Calva, a Sucumbíos farmer, took investigative reporters to the muddy banks of the Coca River where he bathes his children. He pointed at an oily slick: “This is where they dumped production water,” he said. “I have had three relatives die of cancer,” he added, blaming the contamination.
Another survivor, César Yépez (of the Quechua community of Limoncocha), showed photos of tumors on villagers that he insists are linked to polluted soil. These accounts match what doctors occasionally report: unexplained spikes in leukemia and skin cancers, though hospitals sometimes attribute them to generic “industrial exposure” without further study.
The environmental fallout is also visible. Oil spills and routine flaring have distressed wildlife. Conservationists note that monkey and fish populations have declined near extractive sites. In some lagoons near Orellana Province, black sludge lines the shore. Satellite imagery confirms that in the last two decades the green Amazon canopy has contracted around roads and wellpads.
Indigenous tribes have documented that sacred hunting grounds have become barren or toxic. One Huaorani elder (on record) described how, as a boy, he drank from a pristine stream that two decades later ran black; he now sees his grandchildren sick after drinking from the same wells.
Social consequences have followed the oil boom as well. Towns such as Lago Agrio (capital of Sucumbíos) and El Coca (capital of Orellana) expanded rapidly when oil prices were high. But infrastructure lagged: some rural parishes report having more brothels than schools or pharmacies along the oil roads, a statistic confirmed by local NGO heads.
Out-of-work youths often migrate into the oil camps, fueling crime and drug networks. Environmental and social NGOs link these problems directly to the oil money disappearing into private hands rather than community projects.
Community Voices
People living with the scars of Amazon oil have become outspoken. In early 2024 a group of 23 Amazon communities formed a council to demand federal action. They compiled a list of demands: detailed spill records, health clinics in all parishes, and prosecution of polluters. At a press conference in Quito, elders from Orellana held bottles of brown-tinted water and said, “We are drinking black blood.”
In interviews with foreign press, indigenous leaders like Nemonte Nenquimo (Waorani) and Salomón Chambi (Achuar) have emphasized the legacy of broken contracts. Nemonte told reporters, “Oil has not brought solutions to the Amazon… it brought destruction and contamination.” Salomón Chambi has personally taken footage of tar-ball beaches and presented it to the National Assembly’s environment committee.
Legal advocates also speak out. Among them is Pablo Fajardo, the Amazon lawyer who once sued Chevron (Texaco) on behalf of indigenous claimants. Though his $9.5 billion judgment was overturned, Fajardo warns that current Amazonans face a similar fight to obtain justice. “The state must face responsibility,” he said in a recent interview, “because it inherited the oil liability and hasn’t fixed it.” Human rights groups outside Ecuador have taken up the cause too.
For instance, Human Rights Watch highlighted in 2023 that Ecuadorians won a democratic referendum to limit drilling (in Yasuní), a first but now face renewed gasps from a state bent on auctioning even national parks.
Outside experts echo these concerns. An international energy economist noted that Ecuador’s concentration of oil wealth in a few provinces, without direct benefits to locals, follows a classic “rentier state” pattern. A North American petroleum analyst remarked (anonymously) that Ecuador’s fiscal reliance on oil has made its budget highly inflexible – and that fuel subsidies and police budgets now compete with Amazon cleanup funds. Meanwhile anti-corruption activists compare Ecuador’s Petroefera model with similar systems: an exiled Venezuelan general told Spanish media, “This is how we all ended up broke”, implying past Andean experiences.
Global Comparisons
Ecuador’s Amazon dilemma fits into a global pattern. The “resource curse” is well-studied: Natural resource wealth often leads to more corruption and less development than imagined. For example, Nigeria’s Niger Delta has vast oil but also militancy, oil theft, and abysmal poverty.
Scholars note that Nigeria’s oil rents have lined elite pockets while public services decay – a parallel to complaints heard in Sucumbíos. Angola’s kleptocrats and Brazil’s Amazon frontier (where a recent Petrobras scandal erupted) tell a similar tale: the presence of oil or gas without strong institutions often means environmental harm and bribery.
Even the term “Dutch disease” which means falling agriculture for rising oil applies. In Ecuador’s case, oil gave foreign exchange but also made the currency strong, which hurt coffee and cocoa farmers in the highlands. The Ministry of Agriculture, in 2018, explicitly warned that “petroleum rents distort our economy”.
This is a broad reminder: many countries with oil have seen slumping growth and social conflict rather than prosperity. Those that buck the trend often invest resource funds into wealth funds or diversification; Ecuador attempted a national fund once (the Fondo de Estabilización) but often raided it when budgets got tight.
Green energy advocates point out one more contrast. Neighboring Peru and Colombia, also with Amazon on their soil, have had fewer oil spills (the geography and volumes differ) – yet Peru’s gas wealth still financed corruption scandals in Lima.
Even in Africa, Botswana’s diamond wealth is often cited (like Norway) as an example of good governance. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have repeatedly advised Ecuador to learn from these models – advice largely unheeded by Amazon governors, who say they see little enforcement from Quito.
Recent Developments and Outlook
As of late 2025, the saga continues to unfold. President Daniel Noboa (elected late 2023) has expressed mixed signals. On one hand he used sensational TV raids to show he means business – in April 2024 he ordered a dramatic break-in of the Mexican embassy to seize Jorge Glas from asylum (a controversial episode unrelated to oil). On the other hand he has aggressively promoted new oil sales.
In July 2025 his administration held auctions for 49 Amazon blocks, claiming it would inject $47 billion into the economy. These blocks included areas near Pastaza’s Yasuní fringes and prime rainforest territory in Napo. The move triggered another round of protests.
By August 2025, roads to Quito were repeatedly blocked by Amazonian farmers and indigenous groups demanding respect for the 2023 referendum. At least four legal challenges were filed in provincial courts to nullify the new auctions on grounds of missing consultation. The Constitutional Court in October 2025 agreed to hear one case, delaying at least one license sale.
Internationally, California’s state legislature passed a resolution urging companies to avoid Ecuadorian Amazon crude, after environmentalists pointed out that roughly 10% of Petroecuador’s exports go to California refineries. These pressures have caused the government to offer some concessions: Noboa announced an “Oil Savings Fund” where a portion of revenues from new fields would go to rural development, and promised stricter enforcement of pipeline standards. But critics say those measures are too late to reverse the already-sold leases or the chronic mistrust.
In Petroecuador itself, Noboa replaced more executives in late 2024 and has been publicly emphasizing new e-procurement platforms. Yet by November 2025, no senior Petroecuador official has been convicted in the big 2022–23 probe. Congressional investigators started requiring ministers and oil bosses to testify every quarter on corruption, but without subpoena power. In December 2025, a leaked draft budget cut earmarked for oil-sector oversight bodies, funding for the Environment and Comptroller’s office fueled accusations that the government is pulling back from transparency.
Learning from the Amazon
The investigative record is clear: Ecuador’s richest Amazon provinces – brimming with oil wealth – have not seen proportional benefits. Communities in Orellana and Sucumbíos watch pipelines crack and their soil blacken, yet lack clean schools and clinics. The capital’s elites and foreign partners have claimed billions from the ground, with scant accounting for the rest. Data, documents and on-the-ground testimony all point to the same diagnosis: a concentration of economic power accompanied by chronic malfeasance.
What would it take to change course? Civil society advocates propose rigorous steps: mandatory publication of all hydrocarbon contracts, independent audits of Petroecuador, and genuine free, prior and informed consent for projects on indigenous land (enforced by courts, not waived in practice). They also call for international climate funds to pay Ecuador for keeping oil underground, as once envisioned by Yasuní-ITT, an idea revived by Spanish and Norwegian donors in 2024.
As we close this report, one fact remains stark. Ecuador, now a middle-income country, is paying a high price for a resource it does not fully manage. The evidence suggests a reform will be needed if the Amazon provinces are to move toward the “buen vivir” (good living) that society calls for. Their oil wealth could yet be a force for development – but only if the politics of the oil sector changes to match the hopes of the forest.
Citations and references
All citations in this investigation correspond to verified sources gathered during extensive research across multiple continents and databases. Full documentation available upon email to support the accuracy and verifiability of all claims made.
- Reuters, “Head of Petroecuador resigns following prosecutor raid on offices” (Feb 2023)
- Reuters, “Ecuador’s attorney general detains seven in Petroecuador corruption probe” (Nov 2022)
- AP/ABC News, “Indigenous groups criticize Ecuador’s $47 billion Amazon oil expansion plan” (Sept 2025)
- El País (English ed.), “Ecuador ex-president Rafael Correa and deputy banned from entering US over corruption cases” (Oct 2024)
- The Guardian, “A wealth of sorrow: why Nigeria’s abundant oil reserves are really a curse” (Nov 2021
- Mongabay, “Abandoned oil mess still plagues Ecuadorian Amazon communities” (Nov 2023)
- Amazon Watch, “Abandoned oil mess still plagues communities in the Ecuadorian Amazon” (Nov 2023)
- Amazon Watch, “Unclean Hands: Corruption plagues Ecuador’s oil deals with China” (Jun 2016)
- Amazon Frontlines, “Can Climate Democracy Defeat the Oil Curse in Ecuador?” (Oct 2024)(interview with Nemonte Nenquimo).
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