July 23, 2012 • Seven oil discoveries in the Caño Sur Block. • Initial results show an average production of 434 barrels stabilized oil per day of 13.4° API.
July 24, 2012 By Hydrocarbons Colombia Colombian business magazine Dinero.com reports that Equión’s exploratory drilling at the Mapalé-1 well is postponed until further notice because of bad weather.
Bottom Line: Another terrorist attack causes an environmental emergency because there are no contingency plans. Occidental must respond.
Bottom Line: This is a different incident caused by crude oil theft by unknown parties rather than an attempt to destroy the pipeline.
July 19, 2012 Business newspaper Portafolio reports that after 49 days of talks with the directors of the company, the workers of the La Jagua Coal mine, operated by Prodeco (a subsidiary of Switzerland’s Glencore), yesterday morning began an indefinite strike.
July 20, 2012 The formation of Strategic Mining Reserves was always going to be a triple balancing act:
Source: ACP, ANH, Hydrocarbons Colombia Actuals to June 2012 This graph shows that Colombia is well on its way to meet or exceed its goals for kilometers of seismic although this will still continue a worrisome downward trend.
Bottom Line: The mythical target of 1Mbpd realistically has no particular benefit to investors. However the process of getting there is meaningful because the government is going to have to fix a number of things that are currently broken, principally pipeline security and environmentally permitting.
Bottom Line: A state-owned company looking mostly to work with other state-owned companies like Ecopetrol. Probably not much opportunity for private companies except at high political risk.
Bogota, July 18, 2012 Bottom Line: We do not normally track non-Colombian announcements but Ecopetrol is no ordinary Colombian oil and gas company. It’s CAPEX decisions have a huge impact on the country’s hydrocarbons industry.