News and AnalysIs for

All the things we do not want to see went badly this week as incidents went up to 42, above recent and long-term averages.

The Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development (MinAmbiente) Luz Helena Sarmiento has broken her silence and addressed the damage resulting from guerrilla attacks on oil infrastructure and tanker convoys.

A long planned privately owned refinery appears ready to set foot in Puerto Olaya, Santander, after the investment bank managing the project says it has found a specialized fund in Canada that will make an initial investment in the US$3B project.

The 2014 Round of bid auctions and the associated VI Colombia Oil and Gas Investment Conference in Cartagena was the most anticipated event in the industry calendar so we devote a number of articles to that, including our unofficial, unsanctioned analysis of who won what and the translation (with our commentary) of MinMinas Amylkar Acosta’s defense of the outcome.

We have low expectations of ‘rendering of accounts’ sessions because they are typically well orchestrated to avoid controversy and minimize the risk of criticism spiraling out of control. However we were presently surprised by the recent MinMinas session which essentially closed out the first Santos government’s management of the area.

National Hydrocarbons Agency head, Javier Betancourt has been telling audiences that MinMinas Amylkar Acosta wants the ratio of crude oil reserves to production (R/P) to be 10 years and he wants it done within five years. A bold goal that we think will require some important changes.

In the midst of a string of attacks on energy infrastructure and public service facilities, one of which killed a three year old, President Juan Manuel Santos finally took a tougher tone with the Farc, warning that their actions could results in a collapse of the peace talks in Havana.

There is progress to expand and modernize the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar), and the company says that nine of the 15 plants that must be ready to finish this long delayed project have now been completed.

A Bucaramanga based company called Allianza Ingeniería is leading a group of developers that received a patent for a technology that can treat water extracted from hydrocarbons production at a low cost and the company wants to see the technique used at a greater scale in the country.

Spanish gas utilities firm Gas Natural Fenosa says that the number of conversions to Natural Gas Vehicles (NGV) in the first half of 2014 has grown by 17% year-over-year, after 9,691 vehicles were converted in Colombia.