Colombia To Grant Rights To Seek Oil, Gas In 78 Areas
September 10 2010 - 3:33PM
Dow Jones News
The Colombian government revised the results of a June auction
of rights to seek oil and gas and reduced the number of areas
allocated to oil companies to 78 from 96, the head of the country's
oil licensing agency said Friday.
Armando Zamora said several companies that had filed the best
offers for some areas were too small to get more than one area,
while other areas granted were canceled on other
technicalities.
During the revision, state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol SA
(ECOPETROL.BO) was granted one more field than the 14 it had won in
June.
The companies that filed the highest bids for the areas included
Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA), France's Etablissements Maurel &
Prom SA (MAU.FR), Canada-listed Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (GTE,
GTE.T) and South Korea's SK Energy (096770.SE), which teamed up
with Pacific Rubiales (PEGFF, PRE.T) and Canacol Energy (CAAEF,
CNE.V) in some areas.
Ecopetrol teamed with Spain's Repsol YPF SA (REP, REP.MC) for
some areas.
Zamora said the final results of the auction will be released
next month and about three areas are still being evaluated.
Foreign direct investment in oil this year will likely reach $5
billion, Zamora said. The amount will be close to the two previous
record years of 2007 and 2008.
He said several oil companies in the country are in the process
of certifying reserves from new discoveries. "These are small,
there is nothing gigantic but together they add up to a significant
amount," he said.
Colombia has seen massive inflows of foreign investment to
develop its oil and natural-gas industries as a result of the
government's market-friendly policies and its success in gaining
control of territory once in the hands of Marxist guerrillas.
The country's output is recovering to levels not seen since the
end of the 1990s and analysts and government officials expect
output to break previous records and reach one million barrels a
day within a couple of years.
-By Inti Landauro, Dow Jones Newswires; 57-310 867 65 42;
colombia@dowjones.com
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