Another depressing figure has been released by the National Hydrocarbons Agency: in 2015 operators only made 17 registered discoveries, a 39% fall compared to the 28 announcements in 2014.
The General Controller Edgardo Maya Villazón released a report on the handling of royalty funds which included 134 “findings” which the entity considers a misuse of the funds, while a financial institutions industry association warned that the royalty system has not helped reduce the infrastructure gap. These and other royalty-related stories in our periodic roundup.
The renovation of Ecopetrol’s (NYSE:EC) management team is now complete, following the arrival of Juan Carlos Echeverry last year and the shuffling of the 22 upper management positions.
Communities in the area of influence of Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) warn that the NOC is nearly their only strategic partner, paying for roads, infrastructure and social programs, and so they face an uncertain future as the NOC slashes its costs.
The ELN continues to be the source of guerrilla-initiated incidents and while the count of reports near oil and gas infrastructure went down by 2 there were more incidents in non-oil-and-gas areas than the previous week. Armed Forces-reported incidents went down by 9 although they remained well above the 2016 average.
The controversy surrounding overruns in the modernization of the Cartagena Refinery (Reficar) is not the only issue facing Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) with potential to cause a public stir. The sale of petrochemical firm Propilco, despite Reficar synergies, and another problematic refinery project at Bioenergy are also present.
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