Campetrol, the labor union that represents Colombian workers
in the oil industry, met
with the Minister of Mines and Energy to discuss the crisis currently affecting
the country’s oil sector. Campetrol reiterated the same concern that all of the
other players in the industry have made: Colombia needs more oil exploration.
Rubén Darío Lizarralde, the president of Campetrol, warned that if the country
does not invest in more exploration, the country could become a net importer of
crude oil within a decade. He added that the fall of the oil industry would
also have a tremendously negative impact on employment in the country,
affecting not just those who work directly for oil companies, but also people
up and down the greater oil sector supply chain. He explained that in many of
these rural communities, there are no other employers.
Nonetheless, as Alejandro Martínez, an analyst and founding
partner of AMZ Consulting, told Colombia business journal Portafolio,
oil companies really don’t have a choice in the matter. They’ve been forced to
draw resources away from exploration and invest instead in incremental
improvements to production. Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol at least is
still investing in exploration. The company announced
on Friday that it is drilling three new offshore wells in 2015.
In related news, Colombian business journal Dinero
reported on a conference organized by the National University of Colombia’s
Center for Mining Thought. Ex-mining minister and current president of the
Center, Cecilia López Montaño, argued that the country failed to take advantage
of the opportunity provided by the commodities prices boom to create a real
productive base for the national economy.
She stressed that Colombia should invest in developing a productive
rural sector, a modern industrial sector, and a less informal services sector.
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