Fitch Ratings has given a huge endorsement to Pacific Rubiales by quality of their debt with a stable outlook. In their report, the rating agency analyses the company’s strengths and weaknesses to come to its positive outlook. The company’s biggest challenge is the potential for what is currently its biggest asset – Pirri/Rubiales field – to be returned to Ecopetrol in 2016. This fact, misinterpreted by congressman Simon Gaviria, caused a temporary flutter in the stock price last week. Fitch’s upgrade assumes the field will be returned, saying the company has enough strength to overcome even this.
In a press release, Canacol updated its activities in the VMM 2, Cedrela and LLA 23 blocks. The latter two are still at initial stages so the news was mostly about VMM 2. Canacol is not the operator – it has a 20% working interest – but given the block’s adjacency to the 100% Canacol Santa Isabela block, the company hopes to get relevant information as well as oil.
Ecopetrol’s surprise results yesterday got us thinking about what the trend were for Colombian companies. We thought it unfair to include Ecopetrol’s 3Q12 results since we do not yet have numbers for its colleagues. But still there is a worrying trend.
National business paper Portafolio reports that the Sinopec/ONGC Videsh joint venture has US$300 to US$500M to spend on acquisitions and is looking to purchase at least 5 blocks. Their objective is to get to 55,000 bpd by 2015 which we estimate would be more than double what they produce today.
The show is organized by Campetrol, the association of petroleum services companies (long name in English: Colombian Chamber of Petroleum Goods and Services) and runs from today through this coming Friday November 2, 2012.
The main event is a trade show with over 170 exhibitors, an increase of 30% over the previous edition in 2010 (as reported by the web page Globedia here). The US is the invited country and organizers expected at least 15 companies from that country to attend. There are at least 37 Canadian countries in attendance. All members of the industry were welcomed to participate with stands but the emphasis in the show is on services companies.
The company reported net profit between July and September reached CoP$3.24T (US$1.8B), which meant a decrease of 22.6% compared with the same period in 2011. Ecopetrol said that operating revenue increased one percent from the same period of 2011 while cost of sales increased 20.3%, due to maintenance costs of CoP$147,000M to ensure the integrity of transport infrastructure and wells, as well as the maintenance of Barrancabermeja refinery.
Azabache Energy, with oil and gas interests in Colombia and Argentina, published its year-end 2012, calendar 2Q12 results. The company reported a increased loss of CAD$6.6M including a charge for the impairment of certain assets in Argentina. It also provided an update on its exploration activities in Colombia and Argentina.
Early on in the Talisman 3Q12 results conference call, new Talisman CEO, Hal Kvisle, said that he would be visiting Bogota within a month. Given earlier statements he had made about exiting non-core assets and an announcement that the company would be leaving Peru, we wondered if his visit was for a goodbye party. We were very pleasantly surprised to hear the opposite.
Canadian services firm Zedi Inc has selected PetroTiger, a Colombian oil services firm with operations in Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Mexico and Panama, to resell its services.
This is the first time that Zedi has authorized an international reseller.
Yesterday a prominent Colombian congressman, Simon Gaviria went on a national radio program and made a statement (which he attributed to the Finance Minister) about Pacific Rubiales that – if true – would have had a significant impact on the company’s future performance. We will not repeat it so we are not even accidentally responsible for continuing a rumor which is patently false./
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