Wednesday, March 30, 2016

Colombia's Ecopetrol sues over Reficar cost overruns

Earlier this week, Colombian state-owned oil company Ecopetrol announced that it would be seeking $2 billion in damages from Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, the contractor for the expansion of Ecopetrol’s Reficar oil refinery. Ecopetrol blamed CB&I for the $4 billion in cost overruns on the project, which doubled the Reficar project’s cost estimate. According to the oil company, the suit was filed before the International Chamber of Commerce. CB&I declined to comment on the reports.

In other oil-related news, Caracol Radio published a retrospective, detailing the history of attacks by the leftist ELN guerrillas against Colombia’s oil infrastructure since 1986. According to the report, the terrorists have carried out more than 2,500 attacks against Ecopetrol’s transportation infrastructure in the last 30 years, peaking in 2013. Caracol published the story to mark the recent announcement that the ELN and the Colombian government would officially begin peace talks to bring an end to the long-running conflict.


In still other oil-related news, Ecuadorian oil minister Carlos Pareja met with his Colombian counterparts to discuss a proposal to freeze oil production. According to Argus, Ecuador is trying to build support for its bid to hold oil production at January levels, which it will present at the April 17 OPEC meeting.  

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