According to the National Statistics Department (DANE), fuel imports fell during the January-November period of last year. Total imports also decreased. Colombian total imports were US$40.8B in 2016.
Gilson Ribeiro, Manager of Chevron’s (NYSE: CVX) Fuels and Lubricants for Colombia and Central America said the Colombian fuel market has not seen big changes like the ones that are coming now that ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM) is leaving the country after 50 or 60 years.
Although at the beginning of this year the National Government raised gasoline prices because of the new ‘Green Tax’, Colombia has one of the lowest prices in South America, according to data from Global Petrol Prices.
BioEnergy ended 2016 with good news: they had produced their first liter of ethanol in 10 years, after the construction of the Alcaraván plant in Puerto López, Meta. However, the General Comptroller announced that the plant is an unfeasible project.
The graph shows annual average prices for WTI and Brent in US$. Despite the ‘good feelings’ we have all had since November, the average price for 2016 was below that of 2015.
With the Reficar and Bioenergy cost-overrun ‘scandals’ making the front pages once again, Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) CEO Juan Carlos Echeverry is trying to get the press and public to focus on the positive: the uplift to production of refined products from the two plants.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) 3Q16 results let us see into the impact that Reficar is having on the NOC’s business. The graph also sheds light on our assumed relationship between increased refining activity and ECP’s exports.
Mexico has its own benchmark price that policy-makers and the public look at to see if they are depressed or elated. Colombia does not have that habit – the newspapers and TV still mostly talk about WTI – but if it did, Vasconia would be the prime candidate.
Colombian brand Terpel will benefit from an agreement between Chile’s Copec and ExxonMobil. Terpel’s revenues are 66% of Copec’s total production.
The palm growing sector which sources most of the raw material to refine biodiesel is close to “receiving its death certificate”, according to the Jens Mesa, the president of the association which represents the sector, Fedepalma,