Background

In 1999, thirteen expatriate oil and gas engineers were kidnapped by a mix of Ecuadorian and Colombian delinquents operating in the oil fields in northern Ecuador, near to the Colombian border. The following year another kidnapping ocurred, involving 10 expatriates from another oil company, during which one of the captives was murdered.

A multinational oil operator new to the region approached ArmorGroup’s Ecuador office in 2000 and requested a security and risk management assessment to allow it to effectively weigh up its market entry, from a strategic to an operational level.

ArmorGroup actions

Initially ArmorGroup’s Ecuadorian management team carried out a full risk assesment of the likely threats to the clients’ employees, assets and facilities. Once they had presented the report, the team then worked with the client to design, execute and manage a fully integrated security risk management service for all of the client’s operational areas, both in the field and at its headquarters in Quito.

The risk management portfolio provided by ArmorGroup’s Ecuador team included:

• Ongoing and proactive risk assesment and risk management programmes, coordinated by ArmorGroup’s security specialists.
• Rural and urban man-guarding, using a local guard force of aproximately 600 security professionals trained by ArmorGroup.
• Emergency response and contingency planning.
• Mobile Close Protection teams.
• Surveillence detection programmes.
• Threat and risk information dissemination and education programmes.

Results

ArmorGroup has been working with the client in often very remote and potentially hostile locations in Ecuador for over six years without a major security incident.