We always reserve this spot for our monthly rant about the government’s fuel price formula. New fuel prices are announced on or about the first of the month. But apparently because there is no real MinMinas (the minister in charge, María Lorena Gutiérrez, is only concerned with the electricity crisis), the ministry decided to maintain prices where they were in March. We take the opportunity to update our producer price index graphs.
Guess we can say the rally is officially over. Brent hit a 2016 peak of US$41.20 for the week ending March 18 but has slid in each of the past two weeks. WTI hit its peak last week at US$40.44 but dropped 7.5% this week.
The continued commentary from the Naturgas conference (even though it was before Easter) and Canacol’s results meant the week’s news had a decided bias towards gas.
The USO said that a total of 10 workers have been fired by Ecopetrol (NYSE:EC) from the Barrancabermeja Refinery after participating in a strike on March 17th, which the union said violates the legitimate rights of workers to protest and puts labor stability at risk.
GasThe head of Colombia’s Natural Gas Association (Naturgas) Eduardo Pizano said that that Colombia still has reserves for another 12 or 13 years, but that the exploration pace must speed up, and new discoveries in the Caribbean must be produced to attend to Colombia’s growing demand.
Colombian press speculates that President Juan Manuel Santos could designate a new Minister of Mines and Energy (MinMinas) this week. But the process to find a replacement to Tomás González in the midst of an energy supply crisis and constant investigations has not proven easy.
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