News and AnalysIs for

Our readers do not have to be told 2020 (so far) has been a bad year for oil prices. They probably realize that this cannot be a good thing for profitability. What may not be so intuitive is that prices have fallen so far that Colombian gas has (again) become more profitable than Colombian oil.

One of my favorite – and most useful – things to do is catch up with people in the industry over coffee, or, at the end of the day, over something stronger – like vintage soda water. This habit, like many, has been transformed by the current crisis.

We can get down on the Colombian government for not supporting the oil and gas industry as we think it should be. But BP’s latest Energy statistics show that Latin America’s production problems are not caused by Colombia.

At least that is my – perhaps naïve – hope. The ACIPET’s plea to not sell even 8% of Ecopetrol and recent events at Pemex and PDVSA have me thinking again about politicians’ love of state-owned-enterprises (SOEs) at least in some countries like Colombia.

Recently BP published its annual statistical report on energy and so we updated some of the charts we publish from time to time. As always it seems, the evolving energy matrix evolves more slowly than the related press.

Recently, the Petroleum Engineers’ Association (ACIPET) has written a steady stream of short opinion articles and we have been publishing them from time to time in English. I am generally in agreement with their viewpoint but the latest has me scratching my head.

According to Google, the wildest roller coaster is Millennium Force in Cedar Point, Ohio. Whoever made that determination had not seen oil prices in 2020.

With an Uribist government in power, I did not think I would have to update my “MinMinas Tenure Database” until August 7^th 2024. But on last Thursday evening, I was proven wrong.

This past week marked three months of official lockdown for Covid-19, a lockdown which is now loosening. For those who might not be watching the numbers closely, here are the trends.

Between Covid-19, the resulting economic collapse and social unrest spreading throughout much of the globe, many of the principles that underlay the way the world worked in this century are under question. Recently we published two opinion pieces on the environment by a Long-Time Reader and now we have this contribution by the petroleum engineers’ association, ACIPET.