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Luz Stella Murgas, president of the natural gas industry association Naturgas, used a detailed interview published in El Tiempo on July 6 to map what she called a “critical juncture” in the Colombian gas sector and to set out the five priorities she says cannot wait beyond the first hundred days of the De la Espriella administration.

Ecopetrol has temporarily suspended the contracting process for shutdown and maintenance services at its Barrancabermeja and Cartagena refineries — a procurement worth approximately US$700M — following a corruption scandal that combined an anonymous bribery complaint sent to board members in May with two internal memos from senior refinery officials demanding the process be frozen before the government handover.

As might have been expected, we got complaints about using the SuperSociedades data in yesterday’s chart. Today we try to be a bit more rigorous.

The Colombian Oil and Gas Association (ACP) issued a formal warning on July 1 that a work stoppage at Puerto Gaitán, Meta — now exceeding 25 days — is causing escalating damage to employment, regional economic activity, contractor supply chains, and the execution of strategic infrastructure projects across the hydrocarbons sector.

Miguel Gómez Martínez, designated Finance Minister for the incoming de la Espriella administration, gave Valora Analitik his most candid assessment yet of Ecopetrol’s condition and the incoming government’s economic framework in a wide-ranging interview published July 4.

Venezuela’s oil production emerged intact from the two earthquakes — magnitudes 7.2 and 7.5 — that struck the north of the country in late June, killing more than 3,500 people and causing widespread infrastructure damage.