Friday, August 14, 2015

Pacific Rubiales changes name amid collapse in profits

On Friday, Canadian oil company Pacific Rubiales Energy Corp, long one of the largest oil companies in Colombia, announced that it had changed its name to Pacific Exploration and Production Corp. The oil company explained that it was changing its name because it is going to lose its contract to operate the Rubiales oil field, the largest in Colombia.

The name change wasn’t Pacific’s only news, as the oil company also announced that it had lost $226 million in the second quarter of the year. The company’s executive director, Ronald Pantin, explained in a press release that, “During the second quarter of 2015 Pacific managed to adapt itself to the difficult climate of low oil prices through a sustainable reduction in costs, a focused investment, and maintaining current levels of production.”

Given the climate of extremely low oil prices, Pacific isn’t the only oil company looking to cut costs. Juan Carlos Echeverry, president of the Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol, announced a plan to cut the oil company’s operational costs by $475 million this year to more forcefully confront the fall in oil prices. Echeverry nonetheless took pains to emphasize that Ecopetrol is still profitable even with current oil prices.


In mining-related news, Goldman Sachs announced that it had finally divested itself of its commodities play in Colombia. The self-styled “technology company” sold its coal mining division Colombia National Resources to the coal mining company Murray Energy.

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