CAPITAL: Bogota
MONETARY UNIT: Peso
REFINING CAPACITY: 285,850 b/d
OIL PRODUCTION: 825,000 b/d
OIL RESERVES: 2.6 billion bbl
GAS RESERVES: 6.9 tcf
Colombia, facing accelerating oil production declines and the chance of becoming an oil importer within 4 years, reached out to foreign operators with sweetened capital investment terms and promises to combat sabotage.
The oil sector in 1999 accounted for more than 4.5% of Colombia`s gross domestic product and more than 20% of its exports. But only 6 of the country`s 18 sedimentary basins were producing.
Ecopetrol`s production was 450,000 b/d, and it operated more than 100,000 b/d of that total. It also had 275,000 b/d of refining capacity and operated 5,000 km of oil pipelines and 5,000 km of gas pipelines.
The country`s reserves fell 25% in the last half of the 1990s. Colombia officials estimated that underexplored areas might contain as much as 37 billion boe, 70% liquids, or roughly four times the country`s cumulative discovered hydrocarbons.
Colombia launched Round 2000, an offering of 13 units of blocks previously reserved for the national oil company. Bids were due in April 2000. The blocks are in the six producing basins: the lower, middle, and upper Magdalena River valleys, Catatumbo, Llanos, and Putumayo.
Restoring production to 1.3 million boe/d by 2010 was to require spending of $6 billion on exploration and $9 billion on development, Ecopetrol estimated.
