Colombia’s State Council has ruled to support a decision from the Casanare Administrative Tribunal to protect the Tinije Lake area from hydrocarbons exploration and production activities as an environmental reserve, in the area of the LLA-26 block.
It is becoming harder to explain to Colombians why they are supposed to tighten their belts fiscally because of lower crude oil prices but they do not see associated relief at the pump.
At the end of the month Ecopetrol must submit designs for a metropolitan aqueduct that will serve the municipalities of Cúcuta, Villa del Rosario and Los Patios, meanwhile the state oil firm is investing in paving works in Guamal. These and other stories on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in our periodic summary.
Political pressure on the regulatory framework to set natural gas prices continues to build uncertainty around the future prospects for the industry, as well as natural gas production and distribution.
The Magdalena River Autonomous Regional Corporation (Cormagdalena) has celebrated the first successful cargo convey on the Magdalena River, from Barranquilla to Barrancabermeja, the first step in recovering the important waterway for logistical use, including transporting hydrocarbons.
Following a flare up of violence at the beginning of the month after riot police intervened to remove protesters blocking the entry of machines for an oil exploration program, Caquetá remains tense and defiant.
There has been a brief flurry of press articles about unconventional technologies in the past three weeks but with low oil prices the industry has not been motivated to defend itself and the balance remains negative.
Monday, July 20th, 2015 was not only the first day of the Farc’s unilateral truce but the last day of Senator David Name’s reign as president of the Colombian Congress. We can hope that the CREG can now get on with setting natural gas prices based on reason and not politics.
The Comptroller General has told the Meta government that its statistics on royalty distribution show a discrepancy in departmental data, meanwhile the Comptroller has moved ahead with an audit of the Tolima Government. These and other stories in our periodic roundup.
The latest unilateral truce only started Monday (July 20th) but both groups did not exactly ease into it with the total count up by 14 to 46, the highest we have recorded this year. The guerrilla increased their activity by 4 (by our methodology) and, after lagging behind in the past few weeks, the Armed Forces increased reported activities by 10.