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Abdulah also accused Finance Minister Colm Petrotrin never received a cent, not a single cent
Imbert of not upholding his own statements on in subsidy from the government,” he remarked.
this front. He pointed specifically to Imbert’s “Not a single cent was put in from taxpayers into
remarks during budget speeches about the gov- Petrotrin.”
ernment’s need to develop a policy for transfer Abdulah is a member of Parliament’s Lashley
pricing and about its plan to seek advice from committee, which was set up several years ago
the International Monetary Fund (IMF). “So he to review Petrotrin’s operations. The MSJ leader
himself spoke about it, but what has he done? also serves as chief education and research
Nothing,” he said. officer of the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union
Under these circumstances, he added, Port (OWTU), which represents local oil and gas
of Spain’s decision to shut down the Petrotrin workers. Patriotic Energies and Technologies
oil refinery in Point-a-Pierre in 2019 for its fail- Co., a subsidiary of OWTU, has been trying to
ure to pay off around $3bn worth of debt seems buy Petrotrin since 2019, but Imbert confirmed
unjustified. earlier this month that it would not accept the
“[They] closed down Petrotrin when offer. ™

COLOMBIA
ExxonMobil floats plan for pilot

fracking project at Platero oilfield

COLOMBIA’S national oil and gas regulator consideration for the country, which has not
ANH says it has received a proposal from Exx- been discovering enough oil and gas to make
onMobil for a pilot project involving the use of up for the depletion of its conventional reserves.
hydraulic fracturing (fracking) techniques at a For its part, the Colombian Petroleum
field in the Valle Medio del Magdalena basin. Association, known as ACP, has suggested that
In a statement dated March 17, ANH unconventional activity could boost the coun-
explained that the US super-major was inter- try’s oil production by as much as 450,000 bar-
ested in developing Platero, an unconventional rels per day (bpd). Allowing fracking might also
oilfield in the basin. It did not reveal any details attract $5bn in annual investment, the industry
of ExxonMobil’s plan but indicated that it group said last year. ™
intended to evaluate the proposed pilot project.
The agency now has until March 29 to com-
plete its evaluation, according to Reuters.
Armando Zamora, the president of ANH,
noted that the US giant was already involved in
other unconventional oil and gas development
projects. “Colombia continues progressing in
making the possibilities of extracting gas and oil
from non-conventional fields viable with this
proposal from ExxonMobil, which has extensive
experience in this type of project,” he was quoted
as saying in the statement.
As of press time, ExxonMobil had confirmed
its interest in using fracking to develop Colom-
bia’s Platero. In response to a query from Reu-
ters, it said it had submitted its plans to ANH.
It did not mention the size of the field, the
scope of the project or the budget for projected
investments.
ANH has been discussing plans for pilot
fracking projects for some time. Its interest in
this technique has drawn no small amount of
criticism, as local opponents of fracking argue
that the practice will be bad for the environment.
Energy experts, by contrast, have said that
the introduction of fracking could triple oil and The government’s plans for pilot fracking projects have sparked
gas reserves in Colombia. This is an important a number of protests (Photo: Allianza Colombia libre de Fracking)

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 11 18•March•2021