Earlier this week, the board of directors of Colombian state
oil company Ecopetrol announced
that the company would take direct operational control of the Rubiales oil
field, starting in July 2016. The Rubiales field is the largest in Colombia,
with an average daily production of 160,000 barrels of oil. Before, Canadian
oil company Pacific Exploration & Production was responsible for the operation
of the field, with Ecopetrol receiving 60% of the production and Pacific 40%.
Pacific CEO Ronald Pantin downplayed
the impact that the decision would have on the company, nothing that although
the Rubiales field once accounted for almost 80% of the company’s reserves, it
now represents less than 11%. He added, “We have a diversified portfolio, with
95 blocks in 7 countries, which represents a base of proven and probable
reserves certified on December 31, 2014 of 510.9 million barrels.”
In other news, the Colombian Ministry of Mines and Energy signed
an agreement with sixteen extractive sector companies to bring new financial
transparency to the oil and mining industries. The outcome of this agreement
will be an annual report that Colombian Mining Minster Tomás González said, “will
make it possible for the country to have exact, opportune, contextualized, and
socially useful information to strengthen transparency in the extractive sector
and support sustainable local and national development.”
Signatories to the agreement include the leading lights of
the Colombian extractive sector, such as Ecopetrol, Cerrejón, Cerro Matoso, Paz
del Río, Mineros S.A., Equion, and Parenco. Civil society leader Fabio Velásquez
told El
Espectador that this document will allow the country to have an important
and informed debate about the roll that the extractive sector should play in
the future of the Colombian economy.
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