Page 8 - LatAmOil Week 05 2023

LatAmOil COLOMBIA LatAmOil

It also hailed Bayon’s achievements during his stave off an environmental crisis. The president
five-year tenure, noting that the CEO had suc- did stress that his administration would not seek
ceeded in helping the company successfully nav- to halt existing and valid contracts but stressed
igate a number of international crises, including that no new exploration deals would be signed.
the oil price fluctuations that have followed the Sergio Guzman, the founder of the Colom-
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. Bayon also bia Risk Analysis consultancy, told Reuters last
led Ecopetrol through its acquisition of a major- week that Bayon’s departure was not good news
ity stake in the power utility Interconexión Eléc- for Ecopetrol, especially in view of the tension
trica SA (ISA) and development of a hydrogen between the government and the hydrocarbon
fuel strategy, as well as the upgrade of the Cart- industry. “Inevitably, with Bayon’s departure,
agena refinery and the discovery of important the sector loses a standard bearer who was quite
offshore gas reserves, the statement said. important,” he said to the news agency. ™
Ecopetrol did not specify the reason for the
CEO’s departure. Reuters pointed out, though,
that Bayon was stepping down at a time when
Gustavo Petro – a leftist who assumed Colom-
bia’s presidency last year, replacing the more
market-minded Ivan Duque – has been talking
up the need to accelerate the transition away
from fossil fuels.
Petro said repeatedly during his campaign
that he would, if elected, stop awarding new
exploration and production contracts for hith-
erto undeveloped oil, gas and coal reserves. He
recently doubled down on that pledge, saying
during the World Economic Forum (WEF)
summit in Davos, Switzerland, that the global
community ought to eliminate fossil fuels to Bayon has headed Ecopetrol since 2017 (Image: Ecopetrol)

SPEC LNG seeks to assess market interest

in expansion of Cartagena import terminal

SOCIEDAD Portuaria El Cayao (SPEC LNG), “Today we launched a market survey to evaluate
the operator of Colombia’s only LNG import the expansion of our LNG regasification termi-
terminal, is trying to assess the level of interest nal, in order to determine the interest of agents
in proposals for expansion of the facility, which in the energy and gas sector in services that our
is currently capable of handling around 400mn infrastructure could provide,” it said in a post on
cubic feet (11.3mn cubic metres) of natural gas Twitter.
per day. In a separate statement, the company
Cartagena-based SPEC LNG unveiled its explained that it had asked gas market players
plans on January 30, explaining that it had asked to reply to its non-binding expression of interest
gas market participants for input on the matter. (EoI) between January 30 and February 20.

The FSRU is currently capable of handling 11.3 mcm per day of gas (Photo: SPEC LNG)

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 05 01•February•2023