The Colombian Association of Natural Gas (Naturgas) president Eduardo Pizano insists that the country’s gas supply is solid, and that the sector needs advances on certain regulatory fronts more than anything.
Colombia’s watchdog on corporate activity, Supersociedades, studied 53 companies from the oil and gas sector and concluded that 23 or about 40% were at a high risk of declaring bankruptcy.
The Bolsa Mercantil de Colombia (BMC) held its official launch to mark its role as the “Amazon” of the natural gas market. No mention was made of the political forces who have been successful in circumventing the open market when it comes to pricing.
The General Comptroller (CGR) says that Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) has incurred a CoP$16.5B (US$6.5M) loss due to poor control and contract management when receiving fields being operated by other operators, amounting to a loss of state resources, a charge which the NOC denied.
The Colombian Chamber of Oil Goods and Services (Campetrol) believes that using a shared risk model could help the struggling oil services sector by taking on a greater part of the risk, and the potential for rewards, between operators and service firms.
New Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) CEO Juan Carlos Echeverry made positive (although qualified) comments about fracking. Newspapers picked them up but those were the first positive reports we had seen for a long time.
As part of its strategy to increase the longevity of Colombia’s proven crude reserves the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) wants to grow the average recovery factor to 35% from the current average of 18%, by 2020.
The General Comptroller’s (CGR) environmental delegate office said that the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) has exposed the environment and country to undue risks by not doing further studies into the impact of fracking before including blocks in the Colombia Round 2014. The CGR also announced it will be focusing more on the use of royalty funds and plans a series of audits and inspections in the second half of this year.
Colombia’s corporate regulator (Supersociedades) has created an “elite group” of experts to deal with a growing number of bankruptcies and company restructuring due to the oil price crisis, in the first quarter of the year the company registered two bankruptcies and 12 restructuring of service firms.
The new National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) president Mauricio de la Mora met with the president of the Chamber of Oil Goods and Services (Campetrol) Rubén Darío Lizarralde, to discuss a joint strategy to strengthen the oil sector.