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The National Infrastructure Agency (ANI) has presented a CoP$7T (US$3.7B) budget for “megaprojects” to improve road infrastructure in the Meta Department, considering the increased oil production, agro-industrial development and general increase in the department’s commercial activity.

In order to finance infrastructure investments in roads, bridges, airports and other items holding back Colombia’s development Ecopetrol should sell an additional 10% of its shares to private investors, says the president of Colombia’s National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF).

Citing a “high rate of accidents” due to the amount of heavy trucks on the roads in Casanare, the Casanare Secretary of Transportation has issued a resolution that prohibits heavy trucks, including the tankers carrying oil, from using the roadways on weekends on holidays.

Average daily production of oil in July 2013 in Colombia reached a new record of 1,020,000 barrels per day, a 14.8% increase over the same period last year, and comes despite a number of strikes, blockades and protests in oil production regions.

A subject of contentious debate, the new royalty system has its share of critics and the director of the National Planning Department (DNP) looked to quell detractors while speaking on the advances of the government during the current administration’s 3 years in office.

Colombia’s Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development (MinAmbiente) responded to the doubts of President Juan Manuel Santos on environmental licensing and the management of the Autonomous Regional Corporation (CAR) in an accountability session and published a summary of its message on its webpage.

The Casanare Comptroller has issued findings from an audit for the fiscal year 2013 and found irregularities across a wide swath of the departmental government’s spending which adds up to some CoP$40.91B (US$22.18M).

In the transition from a state operated monopoly to a mixed scenario with private players Mexico must find ways to be competitive globally and encourage sustained private investment in exploration says Germán Arce, president of Colombia’s National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH).

Colombian senator Martiza Martínez introduced a legislative bill that would establish a law requiring that seismic exploration for oil reserves first receive an environmental license to move forward.

In July the General Royalty System (SGR) approved 67 science and technology projects which will receive CoP$588.122B (US$311.3M) in royalty funding, the most relevant funding of its sort for these ends since the new royalty system was established over a year ago.