ECUADOR BEGINS WORK ON OIL PIPELINE TO COLOMBIA Construction workers today began building a 26 km (16 mile) pipeline to link Ecuador's jungle oilfields to a pipeline in Colombia through which Ecuadorean crude could be pumped to the Pacific Coast, Ecuadorean energy minsitry officials said. They said it would take about two months and at least 15 mln dlrs to build the pipeline from Lago Agrio in Ecuador to Puerto Colon, Colombia for connection to the Colombian pipeline, which goes to the port of Tumaco on Colombia's Pacific Ocean coast. The Lago Agrio to Puerto Colon pipeline is designed to transport between 30,000 to 50,000 barrels of day (bpd) of Ecuadorean crude to the Colombian pipeline, they said. The Colombian pipeline to Tumaco has ample room for Ecuadorean crude, they said. It is currently transporting about 17,000 bpd out of its 100,000 bpd capacity, an Ecuadorean energy ministry official said. The Ecuadorean crude reaching Tumaco will be shipped by boat to Ecuador for refining into oil products to meet domestic demand. The completion of the pipeline would allow Ecuador to resume some of production, paralysed since March six by an earthquake the night before. The tremor ruptured the country's main pipeline from jungle oilfields to the Ecuadorean port of Balao, on the Pacific Ocean. Ecuador was pumping about 260,000 bpd before the earthquake. It would take about five months to repair the pipeline to Balao, government officials said. Ecuador estimates that it will cost between 145 to 150 mln dlrs to repair oil installations damaged by the earthquake, energy ministry Javier Espinosa said.