During the recent debates on the 2017-2018 royalty budget, Centro Democratico Senators Ivan Duque and Oscar Darío Pérez complained that most projects were subscale and so lacked impact. With the data we collected for our recent long article on fairness, we had the information necessary to look at the question.
Even though Colombia has natural gas reserves which are set to last for another six years, if no new discoveries are made then imports to cover national demand would have to start in 2018 due to problems in the distribution and transportation of gas.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas) has confirmed that 18 companies -12 from the hydrocarbons industry- will participate in the second Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative (EITI) report which will cover income and payments made in 2014 and 2015.
The two largest hydrocarbons-producing departments, Meta and Casanare, get special attention from national and regional media regarding their share and use of royalty funds. Both have a number of what DNP calls ‘critical’ projects.
The Colombian Oil Engineer Association (ACIPET) said that focusing on the established resources and potential exploration projects must also include an effort to better inform communities and counter misinformation being given about oil activities.
The ongoing debate on the General Royalty System (SGR) and its upcoming budget has consolidated the primary criticism of the system: it fails to create any meaningful, large scale projects for Colombia’s region.
The Minister of Environment Luis Gilberto Murillo said his ministry and other authorities are preparing a report on hydrocarbons exploration in La Macarena which could affect some of the blocks in the region, although those with an environmental license should be able to still explore.
The proponents of ‘no’ and ‘yes’ have made slow progress towards a new agreement before government negotiators travel to continue talks with the Farc this week, and there is speculation that an amended agreement might not pass through a second plebiscite.
The Colombian Petroleum Engineers Association (Acipet) and the National Hydrocarbons Commission (ANH) organized a two-day seminar called “Near Field Exploration” in Bogotá. HCC was present at the event; we bring a brief summary of the meeting.
To meet the national government’s 2016 average daily production goal of 998,000bd the next two month’s production would have be to be well above the million barrel a day mark (1.068Mmbod), a long shot at best. Development and exploration wells are also falling short of the mark.
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