News and AnalysIs for

As reported by La Republica, Bank of America and JP Morgan made new recommendations to shareholders about the Ecopetrol’s share. Bank of America described the Ecopetrol’s share as “low performance” and reduced its price objective from US$3 to US$2,75, because they expect the company’s performance will continue to decline by 8% per year through 2014. Meanwhile, JP Morgan said: “The combination of a reduction in production, rising security concerns and ongoing delays in environmental permits will impact the company’s ability to deliver a significant increase in production and operations results in the medium term “.

Caracol Radio reported that, according to Bruce Mac Master, director of the Social Prosperity Department, the number of poor people in areas that develop large scale mining projects has increased. Mac Master said that there are over 2.5M people living in poverty in departments as Antioquia, Chocó, Norte de Santander and Boyaca, in which the country’s major mining companies have influence.

National newspaper Portafolio reports that current Mines and Energy vice-minister Tomás González will go to the President’s office, current Finance vice-minister Germán Arce Zapata will go to head the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) and current head of the ANH Orlando Cabrales Segovia will replace Tomás González at Mines and Energy. The movement of Arce was described as absolutely certain, suggesting there was perhaps some doubt about where Orlando Cabrales might go.

Again a speech to the Large Scale Mining conference, which illustrates has the same problem to convince the population, press and opinion leaders that the economic benefit of their participation in the Colombian economy far exceeds the direct and indirect costs of extractive sector activities. From a MinMinas press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

Although hydrocarbons and mining are completely different, the Large Scale Mining sector faces many of the same public relations challenges that the petroleum sector faces. Political commentators accuse it of polluting and failing to pay its ‘fair share’ for the results of its activities. Communities look to extract services and investment that the Colombian state fails to provide in return for peace. Congressmen look at the sector’s profits and wonder how they can get a bigger slice of the pie for the public purse. In this context, what President Santos might say to the Large Scale Mining’s second annual conference has relevant things to say about the government’s attitude towards resource industries or extractive industries in general.

Caracol Radio reported that a group of congressmen led by Maritza Martinez, Jorge Enrique Robledo, Alexander Lopez and German Navas, presented to the State Council an action to nullify a concept of the Dian (Colombia’s tax authority). This concept allows oil and mining companies to deduct royalties from taxes payment.

As reported by newspaper El Nuevo Siglo, Orlando Cabrales, president of the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH), said that the agency will supervise the oil production of the companies in the country. At present, this work is done by the Ministry of Mines and Energy. “What we want is move forward with a much more automated control, much more systematic. It is now manual”, he explained, and he added: “We have to determine how much the production is.”

The USO says that demonstrations continue in the region of Arauca. We reported on this news item last week. At that time the mayor of Arauca reported that the siege of Caño Limón had been lifted. This news item suggests the USO have taken the demonstrations on the road to other local towns. Gasoline distributor Terpel, which recently announced it was going for a bond issue, receives the usual USO castigation for the sin of outsourcing and Ecopetrol decides to give more jobs to local people in Barrancabermeja.

Incidents were down considerably again this week to 33 a level not seen since the ceasefire period back in December but there were fresh direct attacks on pipelines. Our 4-week Moving Average was down significantly and it now sits at 44 incidents per week closer to what amounts to the long-term average.

Talks resumed in Havana, but the dynamic is security at home. The FARC continue to enrage citizens through terrorism like school bombings but say such acts are the government’s fault because it refuses to consider a bi-lateral truce. The truce concept received a boost when long-time politician and commentator Alvaro Leyva suggested a ceasefire with international supervision might work. But he did not seem to be suggesting that the UN “blue helmets” be brought in but rather that selected celebrities and other worthies do the supervision. Considering the vast territory to be covered, that seems unfeasible.