Page 9 - LatAmOil Week 39 2022

LatAmOil COLOMBIA LatAmOil

Ecopetrol set up an office with four employees
in Singapore earlier this year for the purpose
of expanding its business in Asia. The team has
been tasked with promoting trade in Castilla
Blend, a heavy sour crude produced in Colom-
bia, and with examining opportunities in car-
bon capture and storage (CCS), hydrogen and
renewable energy.
The fate of Colombia’s oil and gas sector has
been in doubt in recent years. Ecopetrol has gen-
erally not been discovering new reserves quickly
enough to compensate for production declines
at current rates, and the country’s leftist Presi-
dent Gustavo Petro has pledged to halt all new
exploration. (He has also expressed opposition
to plans for developing unconventional hydro-
carbon reserves through the use of a drilling
technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking.) Bayon (C) at an event with Petro (L) in August (Photo: Twitter/@ECOPETROL_SA)
Nevertheless, Bayon told Reuters that the
NOC’s proven reserves were now large enough steps to improve its position.
to sustain production for the equivalent of eight “We are drilling 600 new oil wells this year
years at current rates, up from the previous lev- ... Oil production is going up, and we want to
els of seven and a half years. ensure that it continues to grow,” the Ecopetrol
Additionally, he said, Ecopetrol is taking head commented. ™

VENEZUEL A
Report: Swiss trader now handling

majority of Venezuelan petcoke exports

GENEVA-BASED Maroil Trading has assumed
responsibility for the majority of Venezuela’s
petroleum coke exports, according to docu-
ments and sources close to the matter cited by
Reuters.
This development is a boon for buyers of
Venezuelan petcoke, as it makes them less vul-
nerable to US sanctions designed to discourage
trade with or investment in Venezuela’s oil and
gas sector.
Reuters reported that Maroil Trading’s influ-
ence over the Venezuelan petcoke trade had
been rising ever since the company signed a
commercial pact with Venezuela’s national oil
company (NOC) PdVSA six years ago. As a
result, the Swiss company is now in the position Petcoke can serve as an affordable alternative to coal (Photo: Satchidanand)
of facilitating 100% of the petcoke shipments
departing from PdVSA’s Jose terminal on Vene- been handling all of the Jose terminal’s out-
zuela’s eastern coast. bound petcoke cargos. As a result, PdVSA is now
Maroil has played a pivotal role in bypassing able to focus on exporting small shipments of
the US sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector, as it crude oil from its Cardon refinery, Reuters said,
handles exports of petcoke, a byproduct of the citing shipping documents and two anonymous
upgrading and refining of crude oil. Petcoke is sources.
in high demand in the construction sector and According to one person acting as an agent
cement manufacturing, where it serves as a sub- for Venezuelan petcoke buyers, Maroil has
stitute for coal. proved to be more effective at moving the prod-
Since at least August of this year, Maroil has uct out of Jose than PdVSA had been previously.

Week 39 28•September•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P9