Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) is handing over three oil fields to its own subsidiary Hocol in Ortega, Tolima, which caused concern and even blockades by the local community.
Improvised, illegal and dangerous valves installed along Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) pipelines are causing it to lose a growing amount of crude, also resulting in risks of severe environmental damage.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) can celebrate that unlike nearly all of its private industry peers it has been able to post a profit in the third quarter of 2015, but it has seen its production fall slightly, and its E&P business continues to post losses. This has been compensated by its refining business to some degree, while transportation income nearly doubled.
The USO is planning a general strike in Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) fields and facilities on November 17th, which it claims is necessary to protect against mass layoffs being planned by multinationals.
After Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) said in no uncertain terms there is no money to modernize the Barrancabermeja Refinery despite outcry from residents, the oil workers union USO has charged that the NOC is planning to sell the unit, which the firm denies.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) continues to analyze its association contracts which are about to expire, and says that if it bolsters the company’s financial standing, it could repeat its decision made at the Rubiales-Piri and revert contracts. Around 45 association contracts between 2015-2041 could be reviewed.
Emboldened by the recent decision for Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) to directly operate the Rubiales field, the USO has now taken direct issue with the NOC president Juan Carlos Echeverry, who the union claims is dismantling the company to be privatized and targeting workers in favor of multinationals.
Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) Cartagena Refinery (Reficar) has shown recent, serious advances, but there is little good news from another problematic refinery construction, this one an ethanol plant from the NOC’s biofuels subsidiary, Bioenergy. And critics ask whether the mistakes continue.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) says it will continue to collaborate with Pacific E&P (TSX:PRE) following the reversion of the Rubiales field, and the option of integrating Rubiales with its operation in Castilla and Chichimene weighed in the decision to operate the largest producing field in Colombia directly.
Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) has finally made a decision on the future of the Rubiales field, and says that it will directly operate the field once its association contract with Pacific E&P (TSX:PRE) ends in June of next year.
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