During a meeting of the Supreme Court in Cartagena, the chief negotiator in Havana, Humberto de la Calle, said the government is preparing a rough draft of a referendum that would let,”Colombians decide”.
As the government concedes that maintaining a million barrels a day will prove increasingly difficult, the Finance Minister Mauricio Cardenas says projected oil revenue for 2016 could be six times lower than in 2014.
Research institute Fedesarrollo has issued an alert on the long term impact on the fiscal budget due to the fall in oil prices and a likely drop in oil production, with the deficit growing wider than legal limits by 2019.
The mayors of Ortega, Purificación and Melgar in Tolima joined to vent their shared concerns on royalty distribution and expedited environmental licenses issued by the National Environmental Licensing Agency (ANLA).
A monitoring tool for the general public Maparregalías has been unveiled, and it offers a window into CoP$16.8T (US$5.5B) in royalty resources that have been approved for projects in the first half of 2015, meanwhile a report reveals inefficiency in royalty project execution. These and other stories in our periodic roundup.
Repeatedly cited as one of the drawbacks for the industry, the government announced a new framework for environmental licensing, and the Chamber of Oil Goods and Services (Campetrol) found that the proportion of licenses approved versus those filed has changed since the last year.