A report from the Peace & Reconciliation NGO found that the Farc’s “armed actions” dropped by 40% in 2014, which it says saved hundreds of lives. But attacks on oil infrastructure, extortion and the increase in ELN attacks are still a worry.
Government and Farc negotiators were back at the table this week to return to the issue of victims, and received former UN chief Kofi Annan as part of an effort from the Nobel Peace Prize winner to move the process along, followed by a visit from a US special envoy.
Political pressure to nix a regulatory change to let the market set prices for the natural gas market has prompted the government to promise that rates on the Caribbean coast will only go up by a maximum of 4%, compared to the 25% rate increase planned under the new system.
The think-tank of the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas), the Mining Energy Planning Unit (UPME), has a new director. Jorge Valencia comes from the electrical energy sector and took the role early this week.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) grew its P1 reserves to 2,084mmboe in 2014, an increase of 5.7% compared to the previous year. Growth mainly came from revisions in existing fields and its reserves/production ratio is now 8.6 years.
Like anyone in the oil industry, suppliers to oil services companies are feeling the impact of cost cutting and the fall in the price of oil, and in some cases, are feeling it even worse.
In an apparent effort to avoid a truckers strike and ward off critics of its fuel pricing policy, the central government made a surprise announcement to cut both diesel and gasoline prices by CoP$300 (US$0.12), bringing gasoline to its lowest level in almost five years.
Despite the fall in oil prices companies must not simply “discard workers” and cut “the more fragile half” of the business to reduce costs says the Labor Minister Luis (Lucho) Eduardo Garzón.
Incident counts went up again this week (to 38) but that was due to increased Armed Forces activity. As the graph shows, our proxy for guerrilla-initiated activity went down.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) has deeply cut its 2015 Capex and wants to reduce its operational costs by 30% as well, but it will still destine US$200M to offshore development and drilling.
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