Page 10 - LatAmOil Week 05 2020

LatAmOil COLOMBIA LatAmOil
 e initiative was introduced by the World Bank in 2015. So far, a total of 32 governments, 15 development banks and 37 oil and gas compa- nies (including the international majors Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Petrobras, Total and Repsol) have signed up to it.
“ e endorsement of this World Bank ini- tiative is one further step in the energy transi- tion strategy being carried out by Ecopetrol, where we have committed to being leaders in the reduction of greenhouse gas [GHG] emis- sions in Colombia and increasing the energy we generate through renewable sources like the sun and wind,” said Felipe Bayón, president of Eco- petrol, in a press statement.
“ is path to ‘decarbonisation’ that we have mapped out in our strategy for the coming years complements those achievements already accomplished regarding the fuel quality, which translates into better air quality in our cities,” he added.
Ecopetrol has three main natural gas
production elds in Colombia, known as Gua- jira, Cusiana and Cupiagua. Its primary heavy crude oil asset is Cubarral, a block located in the Orinoquia region. Cubarral includes the Castilla and Chichimene elds.
e Colombian rm also operates assets in Peru, Brazil and on the US Gulf Coast.™
Colombia’s daily oil production levels rose by 2.4% in 2019
OIL production in Colombia increased in 2019 to 885,851 barrels per day (bpd), boosted by a rise in the number of developed wells, the head of the country’s energy ministry said last week.
is marks a 2.4% year-on-year increase, said Mining and Energy Minister Maria Fernanda Suarez, noting that crude production had aver- aged 865,127 bpd in the previous year, according to a Reuters report. “We produced more than 20,000 extra barrels of oil a day, which leads to more jobs, more royalties and more taxes to close the gaps in society,” Suarez was quoted as saying at a press conference.
Last year helped revive Colombia’s energy sector, she added. The number of producing wells in the country rose by 6.6% to hit 773 in 2019, she commented. In 2018, there was a total of 725.
The Colombian government is trying to boost a stagnant oil sector by o ering modi- ed contractual terms and fewer bureaucratic obstructions. It hopes to reverse the slump in exploration that followed the oil price crash.
Last year, it awarded more than 30 contracts at auctions that took place last June and last December, in line with its mission to boost the energy sector. e winners included to Fron- tera Energy, GeoPark, the national oil com- pany (NOC) Ecopetrol and others. According to Suarez, these 31 contracts are anticipated to bring in around $2.7bn worth of investment to the industry over the coming years.
Colombia is the fourth-largest crude pro- ducer in Latin America, with proven reserves of nearly 2bn barrels of oil. Even so, the gov- ernment is keen to extend the lifespan of the country’s oil reserves from their current level of around six years to 10 years. It also hopes pro- duction will rise slightly.
Colombia’s oil output amounts to 880,000 bpd, and around half of the total is exported. In 2020, the government is projecting production levels to expand to 890,000-900,000 bpd.
Meanwhile, gas production rose to 1.07bn cubic feet (30.3mn cubic metres) per day in 2019. is marks a 9.4% rise on the 2018 gure of 977mn cubic feet (27.7 mcm) per day.™
Minister of Mining and Energy Maria Fernanda Suarez (Photo: Colombian gov’t)
E`copetrol has signed on to the Zero Routine Flaring initiative (Photo: World Bank)
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 05 05•February•2020