While the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez is embarking itself in the celebrated ‘socialism of the 21rst century’, investors are running out of the country. Even if Colombia has not big oil reserves like its socialist neighbor, the Andean country has a considerable production and it stills an option as well.
Forbes published an article yesterday on the explorations of Venezuelan Pacific Rubiales Energy in Colombia (Jesse Bogan: ‘A Crude Climber in Colombia’). The company became the largest independent oil and natural gas exploration and production company in Colombia, said Forbes, after it left Venezuela when the mass firings at the state oil company in 2002. Pacific, now based in Canada, is producing the equivalent of 37,000 barrels of oil per day only from the Eastern Plains of Colombia (Llanos Orientales) in association with Ecopetrol.
Ecopetrol, the Colombian oil company, is the 4th largest state company of Latin America, though it has currently private investment. In the last 5 years, Ecopetrol has given profits for 1.2 billion of Colombian pesos, while exporting in the same period 1,981 million of dollars.
With companies like Pacific Rubiales Energy and other 34 organizations, Ecopetrol produces oil and gas from more than 100 areas in Colombia, while it has a pipeline of 5,559 kilometers to transport oil and hydrocarbons from the centers of production to the ports of exportation (Santa Marta, Coveñas, Buenaventura and Tumaco) and centers of consume.
Colombia, the 4th top oil producer after Venezuela, Brazil and Argentina, has 1.36 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves in 2009 according to Oil and Gas Journal. It produced 600 thousand barrels per day in 2008, following the same research and it was an increased, because in 2007 it was 540 thousand bbl/d.
The 2007 and 2008 production of oil in Colombia meant a considerable increase after a long period of flatness since 1999. The reason was the lack of infrastructures for reserve discoveries and the decline in the existing oil fields, noted O&GJ. The change in policies from the Colombian government in exploration and the improvement of security in a country that was under permanent terrorist attacks (oil pipelines were the favorite target of guerrilla attacks), improved the situation after 2007.
Oil consumption in Colombia reached 267 thousand bbl/d, while exporting half of its production, mainly to the United States (155 thousand bbl/d) according to 2007’s numbers.
Venezuela is blessed with natural resources, but lacks the human resources (leadership) to efficiently tap into it. I would love to see Colombia compete with Venezuela on overall oil output with only 1/4 of the natural resources. Wouldn´t that be a commentary on the viability socialism.