Aguiar, the low-profile manager who leaves Petroecuador, after dodging criticism and scandals, for six months

Hugo Aguiar, lawyer with Harvard Law Masters and Masters of Business Administration, but without knowledge of the oil issue, he arrived at the management of Petroecuador on August 18, 2022. The day before, that is, on August 17, he had received the communication from Hernán Luque Lecaro, that he had been appointed to said position. from a shortlist proposed by Luque himself. Aguiar arrived at that office, after the scandal that occurred with the former manager Ítalo Cedeño, who left after knowing the interference that his wife had in the decisions of the company.

Now he leaves office, presenting his “voluntary and irrevocable” resignation, ahead of the Petroecuador board meeting, called by the president of the Public Companies Coordinating Company (EMCO) that was going to take place this Saturday, February 11 and in which the replacement of the manager was the first item on the agenda.

From the outset, the appointment of Aguiar generated controversy, since having no knowledge on the hydrocarbon issue, various sectors doubted that he had a suitable profile or that he had met the requirements. 700 points to be part of the shortlist and be considered for management. Even Petroecuador workers issued letters of rejection and even brought a protection action before the Court for this matter. However, the issue did not prosper.

From what some Petroecuador workers say, who preferred to keep his name confidential, as soon as he joined the management, Aguiar surrounded himself with a group of people he trusted, who ended up forming a closed circle. Most of them came from the Ministry of Energy, at the time of the then minister Xavier Vera, when Aguiar was his Vice Minister of Hydrocarbons. Among them were Reinaldo Armijos, who was appointed manager of International Trade; Ramón Correa, Exploration Manager; David Guarderas in Petroecuador’s logistics and supply department, in charge of contracts, and his advisers Andrea Ledesma, Alejandra Chauvín; as well as Silvana Larrea, director of communication.

The constant in the administration of Aguiar was his low profile and total reluctance to interact with the media. The first time he agreed to speak to a media outlet was with Teleamazon, after five months of his possession, when the scandal of possible acts of corruption in which Hernán Luque would be linked was triggered and when it was named that said cases would have occurred in companies such as Celec, Cnel, Flopec and Petroecuador. That January 24, he had assured the media: “We have done things well.” He had also assured that he was not known to Luque, and that he was rather uncomfortable with his presence.

In any case, Aguirre leaves his administration without resolving the start-up of the tender for Campo Amistad, despite the insistence of various sectors and the authorities of the Ministry of Energy that it was an unavoidable issue, for energy sustainability, and without having influenced a better oil production, since it has remained at the same levels since 2003. As of February 9, the state oil company’s production stood at 392,718 barrels. Nor was it left clear the issue of signing renegotiation contracts with Petrochina.

It is that precisely at the end of the renegotiation, Aguiar decided to remove the previous International Trade Manager, Pablo Noboa, and place Reinaldo Armijos. The problem that caused this change is that the contracts were never signed by Noboa. At that time, Assemblyman Fernando Villavicencio asked Aguiar to account, but the official never gave satisfactory explanations.

In the midst of his management, another scandal was generated. This time from the side of the Ministry of Energy, when raids were carried out on the house of the then minister Xavier Vera. With the arrival of the new minister, Fernando Santos, it was thought that there would be a change in Petroecuador towards a more technical profile; but Aguiar remained. Minister Santos had said that he was going to evaluate his performance, then in colloquial terms he had mentioned that it is not good to change horses in the middle of the river, to finally say that it was difficult to make a change because other candidates with adequate profiles considered that the salary of Petroecuador’s management “was not enough for chewing gum.”

In recent months, after the scandal of alleged acts of corruption that would have been carried out by Luque Lecaro, all managers of public companies had to make their position available. Aguiar did too. However, after the evaluation it was ratified again. A week after that ratification, his departure is already a fact. The Prosecutor’s Office has just raided his house, along with that of other Petroecuador officials, from the past administration, while audios are brought to light in which possible acts of corruption in the signing of contracts are discussed. (YO)