Ecuador's state-run Petroamazonas oil company is in the process of terminating a contract with Canada's Ivanhoe Energy, officials said Monday.
Ivanhoe has held a 30-year oil exploration contract in Ecuador's Amazon jungle, at a price of $37 per barrel.
"We are currently in the process of terminating the contract with Ivanhoe" and "thinking of how to redefine exploration and find more investors," Petroamazonas manager Oswaldo Madrid told the El Comercio newspaper.
Pedro Merizalde, the South American country's minister for non-renewable resources, was quoted by the same publication as saying that the government hoped to start talks with the China National Petroleum Corporation instead.
"We hope that, within the next two months at the latest, we'll have a basis for negotiations with the state-owned company CNPC," the minister said.
He added that Ivanhoe, which had invested in the Amazon project, was not entitled to any compensation.
Ecuador, an OPEC member state, produced 526,000 barrels per day in 2013, with the majority through public companies.