Vice Minister of Energy Orland Cabrales says that the technical and environmental norms are in place and at least one contract has started to move forward with mapping work, while plans to start drilling are also in order for others. The main issue is now environmental licensing to see more activity.
From public safety campaigns to debates on who will foot the bill of heavy vehicular traffic, Casanare was home to a number of road related issues and reports, which we detail in our latest summary of road related articles.
Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) Chichimene field has reached a new production record of 66,029bd, and the firm expects water injection and secondary recovery programs to grow that number to 100,000bd by the end of 2015.
The Ministry of Labor is looking to crack down on those presidents of community action committees (JACS) that charge community members in the areas of influence of oil facilities to have work with the industry.
The national government says that the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) will open an office in Yopal, Casanare in 2015 to tighten community relations and ensure compliance from operators in nearby fields. Environmental concerns were cited as the motivation for the new strategy.
The government might still be holding onto expectations that daily oil production in Colombia from 2014-2024 will average 1.062mmbd, but the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP) already has scaled down its expectations to a more conservative figure.
There was another tanker convoy burning this week and trends continued upward although incidents, in fact, went down to 43, still well above recent and long-term averages.
On August 23 the extension of the direct negotiation phase of collective bargaining talks between Ecopetrol and the USO comes to a close, and the union is promising strikes before the matter goes to a tribunal for resolution.
In one of his first interviews as the new Minister of Mines and Energy, Tomás González says that in order for communities to feel a “legitimate” benefit from oil activities near their homes, they must see the impact of royalties.
Some 56 villages in the Putumayo corridor from Puerto Vega-Teteyé have been protesting a plan to expand drilling in the area, arguing that they do not want oil infrastructure that will become a target of the Farc near their communities.