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The Cartagena Refinery (Reficar) expansion is not enough, warns the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP), and if refining capacity is not expanded, by 2040 Colombia could be importing half of its fuel and gasoline.

The legal limit for the government to present its biannual royalty budget for 2017 and 2018 is approaching fast and due on October 3^rd, the day following the plebiscite on the peace agreements. This and other royalty related stories in our periodic summary.

HCC attended the XXXIII Colombian Energy Conference (Enercol), organized by the Colombian Engineers’ Association (ACIEM), Cundinamarca chapter, at Club El Nogal in Bogotá.

Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) board of directors have added three new members which have been designated to replace Roberto Steiner, Jorge Pinzón and Gustavo Carvajal.

According to figures from the Colombian Chamber of Oil Goods and Services (Campetrol), the oil industry has contributed nearly CoP$215.9T (US$72.2B) since 2006, and this demonstrates the importance of the industry and its financial health.

Colombia has been relatively successful in attracting investment to its oil industry over the last few years, and this seen in the signing of US$12.15B with the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH), but its president Orlando Velandia said that to see this capital materialize, greater management is needed from the government.

The Cartagena Refinery (Reficar) will not start to show profits until 2017, 18 months following the operational launch of the facility, and something similar is expected for Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) Bioenergy biofuels plant as well.

Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) President Juan Carlos Echeverry said that gas production in Colombia must address the coming “valley of death”, the period between the decline of current producing fields and the entry of production from Caribbean offshore.

Here is the second installment of Norton Rose Fulbright’s analysis of the ANH’s draft accord. We believe this could transform the regulatory framework for the industry significantly. In this installment, NRF looks at Articles 5 through 9.

In a contrast to the largely positive coverage of the “end of the war” from international press, there is at least one report pointing out that things could get more difficult for the industry in the post conflict era.