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.
It is not easy but it certainly looks that way when production rises over 40% year-over-year and over 50% sequentially. Revenue, Net Income, Cash are all up over last year. Even 44 days of TransAndino Pipeline interruptions could not prevent Gran Tierra from having a grand quarter.
On Tuesday, local news portal Prensa Libre Casanare reported that, through the mediation of a delegate of the Ministry of Interior, residents of the Monterrey and Aguazul communities lifted the block on the Cupiagua field, which is controlled by Ecopetrol. According to Luis Eduardo Cardozo, a spokesman for the protesters, the blockade was lifted but the community is still unhappy: “We demand social investment, labor supply and procurement of goods and services,” he said.