S&P May Cut Ecuador´s Rating

Standard & Poor’s warned it may cut Ecuador’s ‘CCC+’ long-term sovereign credit rating as heightened political risk increases doubts over the country’s ability to pay its debts. Protesters last week crippled the country’s oil industry and helped jack up petroleum prices by dynamiting pipelines and vandalizing pumping equipment at installations of state-owned Petroecuador in the eastern part of the country. The Ecuadorean army has moved into the area and the government is working to get crude production back on-line.