News and AnalysIs for

The U’WA indigenous group, who has been blocking access of repair crews to damaged sections of the Caño Limón – Coveñas pipeline, skipped a meeting scheduled for April 18th with the national government and say they will only meet for a previously established roundtable on the 25th. Meanwhile, the pipeline remains out of service.

Incidents near areas of interest to the oil and gas industry were up to 39, above recent and long-term averages. Non-Armed-Forces-reported incidents were slightly above average in percentage terms and in absolute terms. This is our indicator of increased guerrilla-initiated activity. Our 4-week Moving Average incident count was up correspondingly at 36.3 and the 52 week average was up slightly at 31.3 incidents per week.

The damage and aftermath of guerrilla attacks on this sensitive set of pipelines keeps on snowballing, with reports estimating that the lost barrels have long surpassed a million and that a good portion of the Caño Limon field is at a halt.

The national government says that it will visit the U´WA indigenous group that is blocking the access of repair crews to the Caño Limon-Coveñas pipeline, which has been inoperable following a guerrilla attack on March 24th.

Incidents near areas of interest to the oil and gas industry were down to 28, below recent and long-term averages. Non-Armed-Forces-reported incidents were above average in percentage terms and average in absolute terms. This is our indicator of increased guerrilla-initiated activity. Our 4-week Moving Average incident count was down at 35.0 and the 52 week average was down slightly at 31.1 incidents per week.

This week the Farc guerrilla group was particularly talkative, with a spokesperson saying that the conditions are now right for a peace agreement to be made. But they also made it clear that no agreement can be made which includes jail time for its leaders.

The final stretch of the Colombia’s great oil infrastructure: The Bicentennial Pipeline passes through Caño Limon, which is fraught with problems. Guerrillas attack it, while an indigenous community will not let crews in to repair it. The end result is missed shipments, 35,000bd of lost production worth millions a day and jobs for the local community. Who will right this situation?

Frequent attacks on the Caño Limon and Bicentennial Pipeline have claimed another causality: 500 jobs with Occidental de Colombia (Oxy), who has cut the positions as their pumping station in Arauca has been unable to keep up optimum crude levels for a month due to attacks from the ELN guerrilla, while another report says partner Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) has declared force majeure on shipments for the same reason.

Incidents near areas of interest to the oil and gas industry were up to 40, above recent and long-term averages. Non-Armed-Forces-reported incidents were below average both in percentage and absolute terms. This is our indicator of increased guerrilla-initiated activity. Our 4-week Moving Average incident count was down at 39.7 and the 52 week average was up slightly at 31.2 incidents per week.

This week President Juan Manuel Santos, who is up for the first re-election round in two months, said that none of the other candidates in the pool have the minimum experience required to handle the peace process.