The Constitutional Court has ordered the immediate suspension of oil activities in the Orito Municipality in Putumayo, and ruled that there was no prior consultation with indigenous communities in the region.
The oil industry’s actions to mitigate the fall in oil prices has meant slashed budgets and laid havoc to the goods and services sector. Not even the infamous but powerful Community Action Comittees (JACs) have been left out of the consequences.
The USO welcomed the recent report from the General Controller which questioned the budget overruns in the modernization of the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar), saying that it proves their concerns were warranted and that the outsourcing model is bringing harm to the nation. Meanwhile, workers in two different instances have their own accusations against the union.
Outspoken Casanare congressional representative Jorge Camilo Abril warned the Colombian Petroleum Associations (ACP) that since oil companies benefited for nearly 15 years from oil prices around US$100/barrel, the high profits should mean they increase their investments in hard times.
Alirio Barrera has taken office as Casanare Governor and immediately took to one of the department’s main issues: the General Royalty System (SGR). In a development event organized by the SGR’s handler, the National Panning Department, he called for a new royalty reform.
The Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP) has released a report on its members’ spending on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs, but budget cuts for social programs loom for 2016. These and other CSR related stories in our periodic summary.
The granting of an environmental license for production blocks in the north of the Caquetá Department has local authorities, communities and press sounding the alarm and now a committee has been formed to address production in the area.
Three decades ago the first barrel of crude was extracted from the Caño Limón well in Arauca, and a national paper traces the good, the bad and the terrible that oil production has brought to the department, and its role in the national industry.
The USO said that its presence has been critical to support community residents in Monterrey, Aguazul and Tauramena who are protesting Ecopetrol’s decision to eliminate transportation for contractor workers, which it says is another sign of the NOC using the oil price crisis as an excuse to weaken worker rights.
USO affiliated workers at the Barrancabermeja have put up the greatest resistance to Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) cost cutting measures, with a continued run of protests and blockades affecting the area since mid-December. An unstructured dialogue continues for now.
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