News and AnalysIs for

This article in on a website that frequently criticizes the extractive industry is perhaps exaggerated, but at root there is also an issue: local communities do not perceive direct benefits from oil and gas activities in their communities.

When we saw this, we thought it was a garbled rumor but it appeared on the National Planning Department (DNP) website. Then on TV we saw Blair sitting with senior DNP officials and smiling to the press at the foot of the main staircase in the presidential palace. The story passed from rumor to theater of the absurd. From a DNP press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

The Colombian Petroleum Workers Union, USO, always goes for the big targets: Ecopetrol and Pacific Rubiales. Ecopetrol is open to political pressure from the President of the Republic on down. Pacific annoys them perhaps because it is less subject to political pressure which is why the union went to Canada to protest. The union says Ecopetrol workers in Meta will be on strike this week because contractors pay workers below agreed wages.

This week the forum on political participation organized by the United Nations Office on Colombia and the Colombian National University Think Tank for Peace took place. The purpose of the forum was to create a space for participation in which citizens were invited to express their views on the peace process.

A timely workshop organized by MinMinas investigated crisis management for the hydrocarbons industry, presumably directed at the ongoing issue of community blockades. This is becoming a serious issue for many companies, more serious perhaps than the guerrilla so the ministry picked the right priority. From a MinMinas press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

The USO continues to publish stories that Ecopetrol is not paying contractors (and so the contractors are not paying their workers). This week Ecopetrol workers at the Chichimene station held a work stoppage in sympathy.

Pacific Rubiales has hooked up with Colombian pop singer Shakira to contribute to the construction of a school in Cartagena. Subsidiary Pacific Infrastructure is constructing a new crude export port in the Caribbean coastal city. From a Pacific Rubiales press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

VETRA is a private oil and gas company that generally keeps a pretty low public profile although well known within the industry. Much of its exploration base is in the Putumayo where the security and community situation is, as the Colombian expression goes, complicated. Educating journalists is one part of their current strategy. From a VETRA press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

Last week the USO was picking on Pacific Rubiales and this week the focus was Ecopetrol. The first item highlights a problem we have heard in other contexts: that Ecopetrol has been extending times for paying contractors. In the particular case here, the contractor decided not to pay their workers and the USO questions why they got the contract if they did not have sufficient liquidity to deal with Ecopetrol’s payment terms

We present two stories, both related and unrelated, about small but important good works in producer communities. These were not reported by the national press but by local newspapers, the most direct form of communication with the people most affected by oil and gas operations.