The National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) and MinMinas have been talking about a new procedure to assign areas for exploration and production since September. Finally in the very last week of the year, when government is normally shut down, the text has been published for comments. The comment period ends January 31st.
It is not quite at the same level of eloquence as the Queen’s annual broadcast to the Commonwealth but it might have achieved a similar level of platitudes-per-column inch if MinMinas González had not dropped a major ‘bomb’ on the issue of fuels for electrical generation.
Campetrol provided an update of its detailed drill rig information and so we updated our charts. Workover has stayed fairly stable since May at 34-35 rigs but Drilling dropped by 7 in October after rising in August.
This year had its fair share of all three (cue the Ennio Morricone theme in the background) although it is harder to find the good than it is to find the ugly. This is a personal wrap-up of the year about to end and a look ahead at what might happen in 2016.
Colombia has risen to the 10th spot in biofuel production according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), mostly based on sugar cane and palm oil. But an alternative source which could be applied is used vegetable oil, which authorities say is already being employed as contraband.
Government commentators and the local press blame the slide in oil prices for the significant devaluation of the Colombian peso seen in the past 18 months. The graph shows the kind of charts used to illustrate the point. We worked a little harder with some more rigorous statistical analysis and found that oil price movements are indeed important, explaining about 40% of exchange rate movements but this has only been the case since oil prices ‘fell off a cliff’ in the middle of last year.
The Puerto Bahia port facility has presented the results of its first six months of operation, in which it says it has exported more than 640,000 barrels of crude on four tankers, as well as 14 ships with general cargo.
In the latest advance from Havana, government and Farc negotiators announced that they have reached an agreement on both transitional justice and victim restitution.
Equion Energy president María Victoria Riaño said that the company is passing through a complex moment and is finishing a round of layoffs to cut costs. She also lamented the slow progress and community problems that prevented seismic exploration during the boom times when prices were high.
After a necessary change in the rules, which allowed individuals access to the recently-opened Mexican oil market, and after two disappointing Round One auctions, the third phase was held yesterday (December 15, 2015). All 25 available contracts were awarded, making it is the most successful round so far.
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