Ecuador starts to shut down oil drilling on nature reserve

QUITO (Reuters) - The Ecuadorean government on Wednesday began the process of shuttering oil wells in the 43-ITT block, located on a vast nature reserve, after voters last year backed a referendum to end drilling in the area on environmental concerns.

The energy ministry said in a statement it closed one of the 247 wells in the block, the Ishpingo B-56 well, part of a plan expected to take around five-and-a-half years.

The nation's constitutional court ruled last year that state-owned Petroecuador had one year to remove infrastructure at the block, though authorities have said progress will take much longer.

"Complying with the closure of ITT is not an easy job, it requires special and technical planning," energy minister Antonio Goncalves said in the statement.

Petroecuador has pumped around 50,000 barrels per day (bpd) at 43-ITT since operations began in 2016. Total crude production in the nation is around 480,000 bpd, according to official data.

The cost of ending oil drilling at the block will top $1.3 billion, according to a government estimate submitted to the constitutional court.

The seven Indigenous communities who live on the Yasuni reserve, the largest in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, will also stop receiving the legally mandated funds from Petroecuador for drilling at the site.

The wells should all go offline by December 2029, the government has said, but removing all the infrastructure at the block could take until August 2030.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia; Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb)