Page 10 - LatAmOil Week 25

LatAmOil
NEWS IN BRIEF
LatAmOil
SERVICES
Petrobras makes US$700m
payment to Vantage Drilling
following court ruling
Brazil’s national oil company (NOC) Petrobras said in a securities ling last week that it had made a US$700 million payment to Vantage Drilling Co. following a Texas court’s ruling on a case involving the termination of a contract.
In the document, Petrobras said it had taken this step in order to free up its assets in the Neth- erlands. It also declared, though, that it was not necessarily ending litigation and would continue to defend its position in court.
e case concerned a drilling deal that the NOC terminated in 2015, citing the results of an anti-corruption probe showing that the contract had not been awarded in proper fashion. Van- tage protested this move and sought arbitration in the Netherlands. e arbitration court ruled in its favour and imposed a partial asset freeze on Petrobras in an attempt to force compliance with its decision.
POLICY
Pemex CEO says efforts
to combat fuel theft are
paying off in Guanajuato
Octavio Romero Oropeza, the CEO of Pemex, reported last week that the state-owned com- pany’s e orts to combat the the of petroleum products have shown positive results in the state of Guanajuato.
Speaking during the annual Mexican Petro- leum Congress, he stated that fuel the had gone down by 93% since December of last year. He also noted that the Mexican government’s anti- the policies were set to save Pemex 32.6 billion pesos (US$1.7 billion).
Romero described these developments as positive, explaining that fuel theft had been one of the company’s biggest and most persis- tent problems. Between 2014 and 2018, he said, Pemex lost around 100 billion pesos (US$5.2
billion) for this reason. This is equivalent to 78.4% of the debts that it is due to pay in 2019, he remarked.
The company’s future success is likely to hinge on its ability to reduce theft rates, he added. “Pemex’s new business plan depends on our ability to rescue the company, nancially as well as operationally, always with a basis in ethi- cal principles and free from corruption,” he was quoted as saying by Mexico News Daily.
MOVES
Mexican court greenlights arrest of former Pemex CEO
A Mexican court has authorised the arrest of Emilio Lozoya, the former CEO of the national oil company (NOC) Pemex, on charges of cor- ruption, reversing a previous ruling that nulli ed arrest warrants against him.
Reuters reported last week that it had seen o cial court documents that upheld a warrant issued in May.
e case against Lozoya hinges on accusa- tions of bribery in connection with Pemex’s pur- chase of a fertiliser plant several years ago, when the previous government was still in place.
As of press time, the former Pemex CEO had
not responded formally to the new court ruling. But Javier Coello, one of his lawyers, told a local radio station on June 17 that he was certain of his client’s innocence.
Lozoya, for his part, has repeatedly denied the charges.
Former Ecopetrol chief faces corruption charges in court
Colombian judicial authorities began trying Javier Genaro Gutierrez, the former head of the national oil company (NOC) Ecopetrol, on cor- ruption charges last week.
Genaro has been accused of contributing to the fraud and mismanagement that caused the company’s Re car re nery in Cartagena to incur losses of at least US$2 billion between 2013 and 2016.
Government investigators say that he took bribes in exchange for allowing CB&I, a US-based construction rm, to overcharge for upgrade work at Re car. is reportedly helped push the total price of the upgrade project up from US$3.8 billion to US$8 billion.
Genaro was not the only Ecopetrol represent- ative in court last week, as Colombian investiga- tors also brought three former Re car executives to trial..
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Week 25 26•June•2019