Despite running short of 2013 goals for exploration wells the president of the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) Germán Arce said that the government has decided not to start off shore exploration activities in the San Andrés islands.
Colombian senator Alexander López has called for a public forum this week to analyze seismic exploration conducted by oil companies near water sources, which he alleges are causing grave damage to the environment in Casanare, Meta and Arauca.
The primary problem is that at the main routes out of the Llanos and the Upper Magdalena Valley basin to Barrancabermeja and the Atlantic coast via Bogotá remain blocked. See the complete list of relevant blockages.
Our estimate of the average operating cost per barrel (based on realized oil price minus netback) has fallen for the last two quarters, having demonstrated a long term uptrend over the previous four years.
Ecuador’s NOC Petroecuador has signed an agreement with a handful of Colombia oil producers to transport crude from the Colombia-Ecuador border to the Amazonas station of the OCP Ecuador pipeline.
The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development has announced the continuation of a responsible water use campaign as well as dates in September to clean water bodies and sources in 9 Colombian cities.
The of agricultural workers’ strike has been a boon for the USO, which over the last week sought to link its ongoing negotiations in Cartagena and elsewhere with the ongoing national strike.
Incidents near areas of interest to the oil and gas industry were up again this week to 27 but that is slightly above recent but below long-term averages. This was a below average week for non-armed forces reported/guerrilla-initiated incidents. Despite this week’s rise our 4-week Moving Average incident count dropped to 22.5 and the 52 week average dropped as well to 37.3 incidents per week.
The national strike, led by coffee and agricultural workers, is now into its second week and as many as 33 national highways remain blocked due to protests throughout the country.
Between the beginning of July through August 21, average daily oil production has reached 1,037,000bd, which would mean a new record for August, energy deputy minister Orlando Cabrales was quoted as saying.