News and AnalysIs for

Last week Petrominerales published its 2Q13 and while there was some good news from Brazil and new heavy oil finds, the overall production picture continued its decline. The company produces only about half the crude it did at the beginning of 2011.

Heavy crude production increased, but lower prices and higher costs from its spinoff of transportation services cut into Ecopetrol’s profits in the second quarter of 2013 although it held production to last year’s level, growing 2.1%.

Talisman Energy says that production in Colombia met production targets for the second quarter of 2013, but is facing delays due to community issues and “surface access issues”.

Ecopetrol says that in the first half of 2013 more than 37,000 people worked on job sites and projects of the NOC each month through associated contractors. While they didn’t provide any comparison figures, the company did say local labor was used to fill 72% of these positions.

Pacific Rubiales CEO Ronald Pantin says that recent changes to simplify environmental licenses will improve its timelines for the environmental permit process in Colombia, which in the short term will lead to approval of a license to operate the CPE-6 block in the Llanos basin.

Parex made a somewhat unusual midyear announcement of its reserves and a more usual announcement of its 2Q13 production. Both stories are very good but the reserves story is spectacular. By the close on Thursday, July 11 2013, the stock was up 17% from its Tuesday close.

Canacol issued an operations update announcing a new well in production and positive overall momentum. MinMinas and investors took interest.

The Colombian government has approved an Ecopetrol bond issue of up to COL3T (US$1.556B), a move analysts say will bolster the dollar against the Colombian peso.

The Banco de Bogotá has been one of the lead banks to finance the US$5B needed for all three phases of the Bicentennial Pipeline and bank executives expect this role to continue as the pipeline becomes operational.

The share price of Pacific Rubiales, Canacol and Petrominerales lead the Colombian Stock Market (BVC) with some of the most undervalued share prices, which local analysts say could present opportunities for investors despite the 11.9% drop in the stock’s index IGBC in 2013.