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President Juan Manuel Santos inaugurated the expanded and renovated Tenaris’ (NYSE: TS) tubing production plant. The modernization project took 18 months to complete and required an investment of US$240M

The Senate’s Fifth Commission held a six hour debate that included ministers and Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) president Juan Carlos Echeverry, but failed to reach any conclusions.

With a light recovery in oil prices over the last week and a weaker dollar, there has been plenty of speculation over where the price of oil will end up in the next two years. Also in Casanare, authorities say royalties have fallen more than 80% due to the oil price crisis. These and other stories in our periodic roundup.

India’s Oil and Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan made a visit to Colombia as part of a strategy to increase its imports from Latin America, opening the possibility of building a cutting edge refinery to help guarantee its supply.

MinMinas asked for comments on its 2015 action plan but gave the public only two business days to do so. We were surprised by the distribution of importance but maybe we should not have been.

With figures on the development of 6,770 royalty projects from 2012-14, the fact that 77.14% of projects have advanced to the hiring of services is being heralded by the National Federation of Departments (FND) while the Controller General is worried about those that have not advanced.

The Minister of Mines and Energy Tomás González attended an investment promotion event greeted attendees with a message the Colombia has clear rules and vast potential for unconventional and offshore projects.

A recent study from the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MinMinas) think tank UPME says that annual royalties could drop by as much as CoP$5.3T (US$2.18B) by 2024.

The former Minister of Mines and Energy Hernán Martínez has been fingered by the Controller General for his role in contract adjustments that allegedly cost the government CoP$60B (US$27M), along with the former director of mining contractor Ingeominas, Mario Ballesteros, and mining firm Prodeco. A word of warning for those in the oil and gas industry hoping to see E&P contracts adjusted because of the current crisis.

Despite a slight increase in the price of oil and a series of incentives offered by the government to support the oil industry, more support is needed to keep production from falling in the near future, says the Colombian Petroleum Association (ACP).