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In Orito, Cartagena, Yopal and Puerto Gaitán protests and conflicts over local hiring have escalated as jobs with the oil industry shrink.

We picked up a rare article which sounded alarms on the oil industry in a magazine read by Colombia’s elite, which brought up the legal instability, polarization and environmental resistance that is crushing the national budget.

USO president Cesar Loza participated in the recent debate in Colombia’s senate on the overruns suffered in the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar), and warned again that there is an alleged plot to privatize Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC).

Authorities and oil industry associations have been driving home the importance of diversifying the national economy, with many operators taking on strategic projects in influence areas that stress other industries like agriculture or tourism.

Higher oil prices definitely lifted the spirits of Colombia-committed E&P companies and their shareholders felt the same euphoria.

In his last interview before resigning as the director of the National Agency of Environmental Licenses (ANLA), Fernando Irequi argued that the controversy around the Caño Cristales River and the revoked license for Hupecol was an isolated case, and also defended agency’s process to approve it.