U.S. refiners were forced to source their heavy crude from somewhere else after the United States sanctioned Venezuelan crude oil. Now, U.S. refiners may again be forced to resource crude oil as French bank Natixis stops funding the Ecuadorian oil trade. So far, six European banks have been called out for financing the trading of crude oil from Ecuador. Concerns have been raised that the oil industry has encroached on indigenous territories in Ecuador, including in the Amazon—the world’s largest rainforest. Natixis, according to Reuters, amended its official policy on Ecuador’s crude oil trade on April 7, reducing the volume of crude it finances this year, and stopping all financing of Ecuador’s crude oil by this time next year. The United States imported 67.9 million barrels of crude oil from Ecuador in 2020, down from 74.6 million barrels in 2019, according to EIA data. According to data from Stand.earth […]