News and AnalysIs for

Incidents were down this week to 40 just about the long term average. Again this week a higher than recent average number of the items were initiated by the Armed Forces which is a good sign. In fact, the ratio is sufficiently high to think that either the traditional media are only reporting extreme events or the Farc are relatively quiet. (On average during the past year, 75% of incidents have been initiated by the Armed Forces and this week the percentage is 90%.) Our 4-week Moving Average was up slightly at 43 incidents per week closer to what amounts to a long-term average.

This week concluded the seventh round of peace talks and both the government and the FARC commented on it. The parties issued a joint statement in which they say: “We continue to make progress on discussion of the first item on the agenda and in building agreements on issues of access and use of land, undeveloped land, property formalization, agricultural frontier and protection of reserves areas.”

RCN Radio reports that according to Pacific Rubiales’ vice president Federico Restrepo, the company has increased its oil reserves thanks to projects like the La Creciente gas field (Sucre) and others developed in Peru. Pacific also increased its reserves to 517M proved barrels with other findings which will allow oil supplies until 2027.

ProductionMinMinas recently published final oil and final gas production numbers by month for the period January to December 2012. The graph shows the distribution of production by department.

Caracol Radio reported that the government will use drones to monitor and protect the Cano Limon Coveñas and TranAandino pipelines. Additionally, the government will increase the rewards to prevent attacks on pipelines and also will use twenty helicopters recently purchased for the same purpose.

Mayor General (R) Jorge Rodríguez Clavijo addressed the Colombo-Canadian Chamber of Commerce this morning, and while he was realistic about the challenges, he was upbeat about the changes in the past 10 years and about the Santos government’s efforts in the field. He stayed away from political issues like the peace talks or the impact of Venezuela and kept to the facts.