Page 9 - LatAmOil Week 28

LatAmOil COLOMBIA LatAmOil
Colombian environmental agency puts up roadblock to Ecopetrol’s fracking plans
COLOMBIA’S national oil company (NOC) Ecopetrol is facing a new obstacle in its e orts to start work at Guane-A, an unconventional oil deposit in Magdalena Medio, a sub-region of Antioquia Department.
Ecopetrol has said it wants to invest $500mn in the exploration of unconventional oil and gas deposits, with a portion of the total going to cover the cost of a pilot hydraulic fracturing (fracking) programme at Guane-A. But it had to put its plans on hold last year, when Colombia’s Council of State, which issues rulings on admin- istrative matters, suspended the sections of the regulatory regime that govern the exploitation of unconventional hydrocarbon reserves. e council said at the time that it intended to con- duct hearings on these regulations, but it has not yet done so.
e delay is now having a knock-on e ect. Last week, the Colombian government’s envi- ronmental agency, the National Authority for Environmental Licences (ANLA), said it was suspending its evaluation of Ecopetrol’s
application for an environmental licence for Guane-A. It explained that it had taken this deci- sion in order to give the Council of State time to conduct hearings on the regulations in question.
Discussions of the issue are likely to prove contentious. Opposition parties on the le side of the political spectrum have argued that Eco- petrol’s plans pose too much environmental risk, and they have found support among many environmentalists and community leaders in Colombia.
By contrast, President Ivan Duque has spoken more favourably of Ecopetrol’s pilot programme, saying he wants to see whether fracking will allow the company to add new oil and gas reserves to its portfolio without putting too much stress on the environment.
Many Colombian government o cials also back the NOC’s stance. ey have pointed out that fracking could help Ecopetrol gain access to 3-9bn barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of uncon- ventional reserves. is could be enough to tri- ple the company’s reserves, they say.™
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