As the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar) shows signs of operational life after a long delayed modernization project and appears ready to launch, the USO has started to voice its “reservations” on the project, its operators and alleged health consequences for workers.
The fact that biofuels do not need to be refined from crude, which first must be found and extracted, plus their environmental benefits make them a strategic bet that Colombia must consider, says the president of the biofuels association, (Fedebiocombustible) Jorge Bendeck.
The General Controller performed an audit of the Colombian Petroleum Institute (ICP), the research institute of Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) and found 15 administrative findings, two fiscal and four “disciplinary” cases in its contracts worth a total of CoP$1.072B (US$370,000). Questions on an unsuccessful building of a butterfly sanctuary were also raised.
The legislative bill containing the constitutional reforms to facilitate the Havana agreements on peace passed their first debate in one session, but its main critics in the Centro Democrático party abstained, leading to confrontations with supporters of the bill.
The Senate’s Sixth Commission held a debate on the legal framework for oil companies regarding roads, and said that the current laws for rural backroads are not doing enough to serve the community in producing regions.
A Cienega municipality administrator says Comptroller findings reflect administrative errors not funds misuse, meanwhile The Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas) is allocating CoP$9B (US$3M) to incentivize production. These and other stories in our periodic roundup.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas) and the Energy & Gas Regulation Commission (CREG) said they will regulate long term contracts signed in 2013 and 2014 so that they cannot rise faster than inflation.
The new president of the Colombian Association of Oil Engineers (ACIPET) Juan Carlos Rodríguez has taken up his role and says that the industry cannot use oil prices as an excuse for a crisis, and complemented authorities on the measures taken thus far, but sees a need for more fiscal relief.
The Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas) says gasoline prices will fall in October based on a drop in its international price, although the exchange rate and biofuel prices meant diesel increased slightly, and also countered the decrease of gasoline.
The fall in oil prices has taken the magic out of public auctions of E&P blocks, and their effectiveness has fallen in different producing countries. Mexico recently finished the second phase of their Round One with some improvements, but not the stellar results authorities hoped for.
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