Oil reserves in the Caribbean Sea represent the latest great
hope for the beleaguered Colombian oil industry. Amid dwindling reserves and plummeting
prices, the oil sector has been desperate for some good news. Late on Tuesday,
Colombian state oil company Ecopetrol confirmed
that it had discovered hydrocarbons at its Kronos-1 well in an extremely deep
part of the Caribbean. Specifically, the discovery was located 33 miles
offshore, at a depth of 12,200 feet.
Houston’s Anadarko jointly owns the well with Ecopetrol. The
Colombian oil company’s president, Juan Carlos Echeverry, told
reporters, “This discovery adds to the one accomplished in December at the
Orca-1 well, located in the deep water of Tayrona Block offshore Guajira, where
we are partners with Petrobras, Repsol and Statoil. These results are very
important and confirm the potential of the Colombian Caribbean petroleum system
in a vast area and are aligned with Ecopetrol's new strategy, in which one of
the key areas is the exploration on high potential marine basins.”
Colombian business journal Portafolio
cautioned that this announcement still falls well short of the miracle that the
Colombian oil industry has been praying for. This is just a confirmation of the
existence of hydrocarbons, and we will need to wait between 5 and 6 years to
know whether the deposit can be commercially developed.
In other oil-related news, economic research company
Fedesarrollo released
a study predicting that Colombian oil production will start to drop in 2016.
The climate of low oil prices and the lack of investor interest in oil
exploration in Colombia, combined with the country’s small oil reserves, mean
that oil production will start to drop in 2016.
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