In Ecuador, CNPC-backed Andes Petroleum spent $1.42 billion in late 2005 to purchase oil fields developed by Canadian oil exploration company EnCana. The fields contain a proven reserve of 143 million barrels of oil. With an annual bilateral trading volume of $5 billion, mostly in the energy sector, Ecuador’s foreign minister Francisco Carrion expressed a strong desire to develop further energy relations with China. His position was to achieve greater diversification: “We don’t just want to look north [i.e., to the United States], we want to look to all sides and, as the world is getting smaller, we want to be more pragmatic.”