The USO says that a mass strike of workers at the expansion of the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar) has been in effect for 8 days now. According to the union, 12,000 workers are now demanding greater hiring of local and national laborers, and that salaries and work conditions are the same as foreign workers on the site.
From Catatumbo to Cartagena, coffee growers to coal miners, a recent wave of protests and now strikes have plagued President Juan Manuel Santos administration at a tender moment.
Ecopetrol will hold environmental workshops with communities that fall in the area of influence of the ODISEA 3D seismic exploration project and the company insists that there are no environmental consequences as a result of the exploration.
Pacific Rubiales has come across the remains of an indigenous group that date back 700 years in what now is an exploratory block.
A delegation of Canadian union leaders made a visit this week to a popular tribunal and public hearing held by the USO in Puerto Gaitan and promised legal action under provisions in the Colombian-Canadian Free Trade Agreement.
Ecopetrol released purchasing figures which show that just over 90% of its purchasing for goods and services in the first half of 2013 (January –June 2013) were with Colombian companies. Moreover, its hiring of local suppliers grew 46% compared to the previous year, according to information from the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas).
Llanos Orientales (ODL) socialized the construction of a Carmentea-Araguaney pipeline in the Yopal municipality, which will connect a well in Tauramena with Cenit’s Araguaney station in Yopal, and community leaders are wary of its effect on urban growth and alleged lack of local hires.
Colombia’s Chamber for Petroleum Goods and Services, Campetrol, published a statement written by Pacific Rubiales which outlines the company’s case that it has been a model in terms of development and ideas for how the industry must move forward.
The USO held in Puerto Gaitán the first of its “Oil Ethical and Political Public Hearing”, aimed at the “multinationals and companies that extract hydrocarbon in the region”. The union has been campaigning for these public gatherings for about three weeks now, and this week focused its statements on Pacific Rubiales in particular.
The municipal council members of Villavicencio have sent a formal request to Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to debate issues surrounding hydrocarbons exploration and extraction in the surrounding area.
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