Parex Resources (TSX:PXT) said that its 1Q2016 production grew 8% year-over-year to 28,900boed, and that oil prices are reaching a point where it can consider increasing its 2016 Capex spending.
Equion Energy president María Victoria Riaño credited cost cutting measures and efficiencies for helping maintain the company’s financial performance and production, allowing it to beat the expectations of its two shareholders Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) and Repsol (MSE:REP) and deliver dividends worth US$190M in 2015.
The fall in prices and a drying market for exploration-related services have hit small service firms particularly hard. But it is the high burden of taxes that could deliver the fatal blow.
Geopark (NYSE:GPRK) said that its production grew 15% in the first quarter of 2016 to reach 22,518boed compared to the previous year, but its revenues suffered from discounts to global prices in Colombia.
The back and forth accusations continue between Pacific E&P management and a group of minority shareholders after the company accepted a restructuring offer from Catalyst Capital, but a new offer from EIG Global Energy Partners has emerged at the last minute.
In Orito, Cartagena, Yopal and Puerto Gaitán protests and conflicts over local hiring have escalated as jobs with the oil industry shrink.
We picked up a rare article which sounded alarms on the oil industry in a magazine read by Colombia’s elite, which brought up the legal instability, polarization and environmental resistance that is crushing the national budget.
USO president Cesar Loza participated in the recent debate in Colombia’s senate on the overruns suffered in the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar), and warned again that there is an alleged plot to privatize Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC).
Authorities and oil industry associations have been driving home the importance of diversifying the national economy, with many operators taking on strategic projects in influence areas that stress other industries like agriculture or tourism.
Higher oil prices definitely lifted the spirits of Colombia-committed E&P companies and their shareholders felt the same euphoria.
2025, Hydrocarbons Colombia, All Rights Reserved.
