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Natural gas producer Promigás has been offered up to US$100M in financing from the Interamerican Development Bank to improve its “Brilla” lending program due to its success in helping the bottom of the pyramid.

Colombia’s association of natural gas producers Naturgas has formulated three proposals that it says will make gas more competitive for industrial use. It has presented its proposal to regulatory authorities for their review.

The first quarter is strange because some stragglers take the full 90 days they have to report 4Q results and then often are able to file 1Q results early. So we did not publish our price analysis last quarter and have two quarters´ worth of data for this quarter.

Photo: MinMinas
MinMinas Federico Renjifo has a big smile as he helps an unidentified citizen of Valle de Cauca cook on her new gas stove. Maybe it is a sign that he believes more in the concept that there are over 16 years-worth of gas reserves than the concept that the country will run be in shortages by 2019. From a MinMinas press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

Our publication of Naturgas press releases and their criticism of statements by Santiago Urdinola, VP of Mining, Hydrocarbons and Energy at business persons’ association ANDI has sparked a reply from the ANDI. It seems the statement about potential gas shortages in 2019 were in fact based on well-informed study, in particular scenarios developed by the UPME, a MinMinas research institute on energy issues. We publish in full their letter to us and finish with our commentary.

This the longer version of the ANDIs study on gas supply. From an ANDI press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

Oil gets much of the attention but from a domestic politics point of view, gas is perhaps more important. The government has been pushing development of gas as a substitute for dirtier fuels and as part of an integrated strategy for electrical generation. From a MinMinas press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.

Newspaper El Nuevo Siglo interviewed Jorge Bendeck, Fedebiocombustibles president, who referred to the advantages of using biofuels and the current state of the sector in the country. According Bendeck, although the government has supported the biofuels industry, it does not stimulate domestic consumption.

We do not usually comment on global petroleum trends but having stared at this graph for weeks now we thought it worth publishing. It shows weekly closing prices for the two most commonly discussed benchmark prices – WTI and Brent – in US dollars going back to just about a year before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the generally accepted start of the current financial crisis.

Business magazine Dinero reported that lawyer Camilo Araque filed a demand at the Constitutional Court against article 101 of Law 1450 of 2011. Araque considers that this article, which decrees that the Ministry of Mines and Energy is in charge of setting the price of fuel, “displays an incontrovertible ignorance of the Constitution.”