News and AnalysIs for

The average royalty rate in Colombia is 16% but the graph shows considerable variation between the leading producers.

Colombia’s labor minister Rafael Pardo Rueda met with a delegation of political and social leaders from Casanare to discuss the trouble plagued labor relationship between the local community and oil companies.

The USO held another “ethical judgment” session and called on Pacific Rubiales Energy to be expelled from Colombia for what it says are systematic violations of the right to freely form a union and said that it would be setting up an operational commission to specifically monitor its actions.

Following an early August resolution to restrict heavy trucks on Casanare roadways during weekends and holidays, the department’s secretary of public works Wilson Arenas has said in order to consider lifting the restrictions, oil producers must implement a safety protocol.

Incidents near areas of interest to the oil and gas industry were back up this week to 20 but that is still well below recent and long-term averages. This was an above average week for non-armed forces reported/guerrilla-initiated incidents. This dropped our 4-week Moving Average incident count up to 22.8 and the 52 week average dropped as well to 37.9 incidents per week.

In order to reduce transportation costs Pacific Rubiales is mulling the purchase of a light oil producer in Colombia, as it could mix the lighter crude with its heavier product making it apt for pipeline transport and lower costs.