Counts were up significantly to 41 considerably above recent and long-term averages. This was an average week for non-Armed Forces i.e. guerrilla-initiated events which means both guerrilla and Armed Forces activities were up. Our 4-week Moving Average incident count was up to 34.5 incidents and the 52 week average was up to 37.5 incidents per week.
The Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development has developed a quick, free, online tool for assessing whether a project is, or is not likely to run into problems with the National Environmental Licensing Agency. We have tried it out and provide our comments after the first translated article.
There is a new Deputy Director of the section of the National Environmental Licensing Agency that is responsible for the technical parts of permitting. This puts her at the heart of the difficult balancing job. From an ANLA press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.
The eighth round of peace talks ended last week in Havana. Representatives of the government and the FARC issued a joint statement that outlined the progress of the process. The official statement highlighted progress but, as usual, the un-official communications undo what gets accomplished at the negotiating table.
Just in time for the Minister’s speech to the CinMiPetrol conference next week in Cartagena, the Ministry announces a second consecutive month with crude oil production above 1Mbd. April’s number was 1,006,799bd which was below the record 1,013,481bd last month but still above the objective and much better than February’s result.
Sounding like something from a Transformers movie and merging the acronym ‘OCAD’ (for the initials in Spanish of the boards that approve projects looking for royalty money) and ‘marathon’, the invented word ‘OCADton’ is supposed to reassure local municipalities that the process is working faster in 2013. From a DNP press release, translated and with commentary by Hydrocarbons Colombia.