Francisco Lloreda and the Colombian Association of Petroleum
(ACP) have succeeded
in stealing the headlines from the impending Colombian oil workers strike and
getting the message out regarding the significant problems facing the country’s
oil industry. The ACP president admitted that oil exploration in 2015 is
decreasing at a rate much greater than what the ACP had anticipated,
jeopardizing Colombia’s future oil security.
Lloreda warned,
“There is a moment in which the country will surely need to go back to importing
crude (…) Colombia achieved self-sufficiency in regards to hydrocarbons and
(today) it requires investment, or else, if we are not able to increase
reserves we will lose that self-sufficiency.” The ACP has called on the
Colombian government to lower operational costs and give increased flexibility
to oil companies when it comes to contracts and taxes, in order to stimulate
investment in oil exploration.
Luis Restrepo, an executive director at ProColombia, talked
with TheStreet about the impact that falling oil prices and the U.S.-Colombia
free-trade agreement have had on the Colombian economy. He argued that the
free-trade agreement has been a huge success for Colombia, with tremendous
gains in the tourism sector. Restrepo added that, given the collapse in oil
prices, Colombia is relying even more on the textile and tourism industries to
drive economic growth.
Other industry observers
were much less optimistic than Luis Restrepo. Diego Cortés Valencia argued that
the Colombian economy has become overly dependent on resource extraction, and
now that commodities prices have fallen, the ambitious social goals of the
second Santos government are now imperiled. According to Valencia, “The next 4
years will be lean years, and the big question is, who will pay for the
crisis?”
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