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.
The Labor Minister Luis Eduardo Garzón said that the increase in guerrilla attacks over the last month, coupled with low oil prices could lead to a loss of between 8-10,000 jobs in the oil industry.
The USO continues to milk the uncertainty surrounding Pacific Rubiales (TSX:PRE) and the future of the Rubiales field and push for it to be reverted to Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) control.
Odin Petroil, which owns a biofuels refinery in Santa Marta, Magdalena is going through a restructuring process, and now has two competing offers to consider for use of the refinery including a recent one from Brazilian NOC Petrobras (NYSE:PBR).
This article by contributor León Teicher first appeared in Colombia’s national business newspaper, Portafolio. We think it perfectly captures the frustration most of us feel over the asymmetry between environmental management of major companies and the environmental damage by traditional agriculture or, as in this case, by the guerrilla.
The Farc announced the end of their unilateral truce on the 22nd of May and another one will start on July 20th. In between has been one of the more intense periods of violence in recent memory with a significant amount of the incidents directed specifically at oil and as infrastructure.
Awaking from an apparent slumber, President Juan Manuel Santos issued his clearest message to the Farc that no agreement can be made without transitional justice.
We have frequently noted the disconnect between the official statistics on gas demand (as shown in the chart) and the qualitative evidence of increased domestic gas coverage and vehicle conversions.
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