News and AnalysIs for

Government and Farc negotiators met today in Havana to resume peace talks. It was widely reported in the Colombian press that lead negotiator Humberto de la Calle admonished the Farc to stay focused on the agenda and to avoid attempts to practice public politics while still armed. Surprisingly perhaps, there was a positive response from the guerrilla negotiating team.

The Colombian Petroleum Workers Union (known as USO) apparently also takes an extended vacation period over the year-end holidays since news was light over past three weeks. The biggest news was an agreement with SAExploration Company in Puerto Gaitan, Meta to settle a work stoppage. The company took back terminated workers and provided bonuses.

Incidents were up 42% this week to 34, the highest since December 8th. As our researcher said, it is clear that vacations are over. This sent our 4-week Moving Average up 10% having previously dropped continuously since the week of October 20th, except for a small blip the week of December 1st. It now sits at 27 incidents per week although still down from a peak of 58 back in October.

Pacific Rubiales recently published its investment plans for 2013. Ecopetrol did the same before at the end of December. Although the gross amounts are quite different – Pacific will invest US$1.7B whereas Ecopetrol will invest US$9.7B – considering their relative sizes in terms of revenues and production, Pacific will invest much more. We estimate 40-45% of 2012 revenues for PRE versus only about 25% for Ecopetrol.

Parex reported preliminary production numbers for 4Q12 of 12,800bd. That represents a nearly 18% increase over the third quarter. December average production was 13,550bd so there would be high hopes for 1Q13. We had previously written that one of the company’s challenges was growing new fields faster than the Kona field was declining. Although this press release provided no field-level detail, it certainly appears that Parex accomplished this in aggregate.

Suroco has operating and exploration interests in Colombia’s Putumayo basin. According to a company press release, they exited December with production at 1,400bd compared to an average December production of 1,271bd. This can be compared to September’s figure of 1,231bd and 3Q12’s figure of 1,111bd.

Alan Jara, Governor of Meta, told El Espectador more about the refinery that will begin construction this year in Meta. According Jara, the project is expected to be completed in late 2015. The refinery construction is in charge of the Llaso Company, managed by Ricardo Rodriguez. Llaso emerged from the partnership between the U.S. Company Solver Structural Partnership and Petroleos del Llano, created by the Government of the Meta in 2012.

As we recently reported, this year the diesel fuel may have only 50ppm sulfur, however according to national business paper Portafolio, Tomás González, Deputy Minister of Energy says this measure cost Ecopetrol more than a CoP$1T that went into expanding the production capacity of the Barrancabermeja refinery and associated transport logistics. Gonzalez added that it is important to improve engine performance and reduce exhaust emissions, as required by the Air Quality Law.

After the January 4 attack on the Coveñas-Cano Limón pipeline in the Arauca department, Ecopetrol began manual oil extraction in the Arauca River. According to the company about 150 people are working on decontamination. Edward Portillo, departmental coordinator of the committee on risk management, told Caracol Radio “the extraction is with buckets and cans, and then Ecopetrol collects the crude and burns it”.

Incidents were up slightly again this week but well within recent variation. Our 4-week Moving Average has dropped continuously since the week of October 20th, except for a small blip the week of December 1st. It now sits at 24 incidents per week down from a peak of 58 back in October.