News and AnalysIs for

(The USO is the Colombian petroleum workers union. Unrepentantly radically left, it often seems trapped in some Marxist-Leninist twilight zone from before the fall of the Berlin Wall or perhaps before the Second World War. Still its capacity for mischief is unmistakable and so we believe it is important for oil and gas industry stakeholders to keep track of what they up to. We will summarize major news items from their webpage or other sources and publish the summary every Monday. We will reproduce the tone of their items while not agreeing with their messages. )

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Rumors had flown all weekend – many of them wrong – but the news hit early morning from C&C Energy (aka CyC Energia). Pacific Rubiales will buy the production assets and Llanos exploration blocks of the company in return for PRE stock. The company’s Putumayo and Middle Magdalena exploration assets will go into a NewCo, jointly owned by C&C’s current shareholders and Pacific Rubiales. C&C shareholders get Pacific Rubiales stock, NewCo stock and $0.001 per share.

Source: Yahoo Finance, Hydrocarbons Colombia

Colombian oil stocks started to creep up on Friday afternoon then shot up at the end of trading. Most stocks jumped when the market opened on Monday and then drifted around after the C&C Energy/Pacific Rubiales announcement to finish as seen in the chart. Only one stock finished lower (Petrodorado) and one stock (Suroco) had its run up entirely on Friday afternoon and opened lower on Monday rather than higher.

Resolving a long standing dispute between Colombia and Nicaragua, the International Court in The Hague redrew the maritime boundaries between the two countries today. Colombia keeps the islands in the Caribbean that have been part of the country for a very long time but the court extended Nicaragua’s economic zone further east, surrounding some of this islands and nearly enclosing others. Some offshore blocks disappear from the National Hydrocarbons Agency’s (ANH’s) inventory completely and some have been reduced in size.

Incidents were down again slightly this week perhaps disproving our hypothesis that things would heat up around the resumption of peace talks next week. Quantity may be down but severity would seem to be up.

RCN Radio reports that the Farc are assumed to be responsible for an explosives attack on the TransAndino pipeline in two separate locations. The first was in the village of El Verde in municipality of Puerres in the department of Nariño and the second was a few kilometers away in the village of San Pablo in the municipality of Cordoba in the same department. Both are located near the border with Putumayo.

As reported RCN Radio, while in Venezuela and Ecuador the price per gallon of gasoline is US$0,19 and US$1,54 respectively, in Colombia is US$4.14, the fourth highest in Latin America. Uruguay is the Latin American country with the most expensive gasoline (US$5.75 per gallon), followed by Brazil (US$5.34 per gallon) and Chile (US$4.39 per gallon). The high price per gallon of gasoline in Colombia surpasses even that of the United States, where it is estimated that a gallon of gasoline costs US$2.85. It takes a barrel of oil to produce 42 gallons of gasoline.

The Ministry of Mines and Energy inaugurated the first business conference in the gas sector involving producers, transport companies, distributors and local suppliers. Seventy companies responded to the call made by Naturgas —the association of natural gas distributors, producers, transporters and retailers.

This was a big week for corporate results with five more companies reporting.