Venezuela is to build a five-billion-dollar (340 million euros) oil refinery in Ecuador to go onstream in four years, Ecuador's oil minister Galo Chiriboga Zambrano said here on Thursday.
The refinery, with a capacity to refine 300,000 barrels of crude per day, will be built in the province of Manabi, he said.
It will be financed by both countries and supplied largely with crude from Ecuador, said Chiriboga, currently in the Austrian capital for a key meeting of OPEC ministers.
"We're going to build it. The feasibility study will be ready in June. The plant itself will be finalised in four years," the minister said through a translator. The plant would be financed "one part by Ecuador, the other by Venezuela," Chiriboga continued. "The idea is to promote investment of Latin American countries in refineries."
Initially the refinery would be run on Ecuador crude. "But later on, it would (use) Venezualan oil when ours is depleted."
Asked whether a change in government in Venezuela might jeopardise the project, the minister said: "We're negotiating with the Venezuelan state not with President (Hugo) Chavez."
Similarly, Venezuela was negotiating with the state of Ecuador, not President Rafael Correa, he added.