According to a Central Bank report, the the oil, mining and quarrying sector accounted for over half of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Colombia between January and September 2012. The commerce and hotels sector accounted for 9% while transport and communications accounted for 10% of FDI. The FDI for electricity, gas and water was 5% and 10% for manufacturing. Meanwhile, other sectors contributed 12% of the FDI.
For at least one day in 2012, the country achieved the goal of 1Mbd. From a MinMinas press release, translated and with comments
The Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy provided a year-end summary, highlighting some of the records achieved in 2012. From a MinMinas press release, selected, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.
On the evening of December 19th, the Colombian Congress passed a comprehensive tax reform. It is intended to be revenue neutral – neither increase nor decrease government revenues – although this is always a theoretical calculation. The intention was to reduce inequality by lowering taxes on the middle class through raising the threshold below which individuals do not pay income tax. This was compensated by raising taxes rates above the threshold and by slightly higher corporate taxes (1% higher). However the hydrocarbons industry dodged several bullets aimed by at it by congressman Simon Gaviria.
Caracol Radio reports that in the sector’s “Rendering of Accounts”, Minminas Federico Renjifo referred to 2012’s oil production delays. According to Renjifo: “Although there have been days we’ve been above 980,000 barrels and production for over a million barrels is achievable, sometimes we have had problems in pipelines, we have had licensing issues, but the number of barrels produced surpass 980,000 barrels on some days”.
Monday December 10, 2012 was the regular “Rendering of Accounts” for the Ministry of Mines and Energy. These sessions are important for the public to understand what has been accomplished and they provide an opportunity for feedback and questions. Unfortunately we struggled to stay awake because MinMinas had virtually nothing new to say about the sector that had not been said at the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) “Rendering of Accounts” session on November 30. We were disappointed.
It was telling that MinMinas reported that President Juan Manuel Santos announced a plan to boost the Putumayo department development. The department is one of the poorest and yet is the focus of much oil exploration and production. The projects initiated or ongoing have to do with issues of energy, roads, health, education, land titling and victims’ restitution. According to Santos, the government will set a special price for gasoline in this border department and there will be permanent electricity in Puerto Asis.
National business magazine Dinero has finally recognized the challenges facing the industry. The article points out that while the oil industry is one of the strongest in the country, there has been no major oil discovery recently, terrorist attacks on pipelines continue, there are delays with the environmental licensing (as we recently reported) and strikes and shut-ins in the oil fields.
The NGO Transparency International released its Corruption Perceptions Index 2012. The index scores countries on a scale from 0 to 100 where a 0 score indicates that a country is very corrupt and a 100 score indicates that it is very clean. None of the 176 countries included in the index got a perfect score.The graph here shows the ranking of all the countries in the study with lower ranked being better.
Last Friday, November 30, 2012 the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) presented its “Rendering of Accounts”, a kind of public performance review in which citizens are invited to listen and openly question and criticize if they wish. The session lasted about four hours and covered a wide range of the agency’s activities. Hydrocarbons Colombia was there and we noted the following items (with our commentary).
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