News and AnalysIs for

In order to finance infrastructure investments in roads, bridges, airports and other items holding back Colombia’s development Ecopetrol should sell an additional 10% of its shares to private investors, says the president of Colombia’s National Association of Financial Institutions (ANIF).

At 13, this was the second lowest week we have had since we started collecting statistics at the beginning of 2Q12. This was an above average week for non-armed forces reported/guerrilla-initiated incidents. That dropped our 4-week Moving Average incident count down to 23.3 but the 52 week average was essentially stable at 38.5 incidents per week.

We picked up a story a few weeks ago that dead chigüiros had been found in an open tank at a Casanare installation belonging to Parex. A chigüiro is a rodent about the size of a dog or a small pig, indigenous to Colombia’s Llanos. We spoke to Parex to get their side of the story.

Gran Tierra Energy raised its daily production estimates on increased yields from the Costayaco field in Colombia and sustained production from its Moqueta well where it discovered a new oil column earlier this year. Colombia continues to provide the majority of its daily production.

This week saw little new material or events in relation to the ongoing peace talks in Havana, as both Santos and the Farc continued to repeat their stance while little official communication comes out of the talks in Cuba.

Citing a “high rate of accidents” due to the amount of heavy trucks on the roads in Casanare, the Casanare Secretary of Transportation has issued a resolution that prohibits heavy trucks, including the tankers carrying oil, from using the roadways on weekends on holidays.