Colombia’s state-owned energy company Ecopetrol plans to drill between 20% and 40% more new oil wells this year than originally planned, vice president Rafael Guzman said, as quoted by Reuters.
The country’s government, led by Gustavo Petro, has a comprehensive decarbonization plan that would involve reducing oil and gas production, but it seems not just yet.
“I think we will do more than the planned 10, I think it could be 20% to 40% more than that figure,” Ecopetrol’s Guzman said, adding that “It’s going really well to meet our goal, which is between 740,000 barrels and 750,000 barrels. We’ve had some difficulties in the area that have limited production, but we have mostly overcome and shown the potential.”
The company booked record production rate for the first half of the year, at 751,000 barrels daily, already above its target for the full year. The company earlier this year confirmed the commercial viability of a 2018 discovery that could further boost output but this would go against President Petro’s transition plans. He has already taken steps to secure those plans by halting the issuance of new exploration licenses in Colombia.
Back in 2022, when he came to power, Gustavo Petro pledged to shift Colombia’s economy away from oil, coal, and gas, in favour of lower-carbon energy alternatives. At last year’s COP28, Petro became the first leader of a large energy producer to vow to phase out hydrocarbons, endorsing a call for something called a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The state oil company, meanwhile, is seeking partners for the development of five fields, Guzman told Reuters, adding the development would be done under production-sharing agreements that the Gustavo government appears to have nothing against.
“We have had multiple offers, there is interest in companies with these schemes. It’s a way to rehabilitate and re-develop some fields that we have,” the executive said.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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