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LATIN AMERICA |
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Ecopetrol
to Take 100% Stake in Fields Now Operated by
BP
BOGOTA – State-owned Empresa Colombiana de
Petroleos announced on Friday that beginning
in the second half of 2010 it will take a
100 percent stake in two fields in eastern
Colombia currently operated by British
energy giant BP.
Ecopetrol said in a statement that it will
take over operation of the Cupiagua and
Cupiagua Sur fields once the current
association contract expires.
The partners to that contract, signed in
1982, include Ecopetrol; BP Exploration
Company-Colombia Ltd and BP Santiago Oil
Company; and Tepma, a subsidiary of France’s
Total.
Ecopetrol is the majority partner in the
association, with a 50 percent stake. BP,
the operator of the field, holds 31 percent
and Tepma 19 percent.
The contract will expire on June 30, 2010
and, by government order, will not be
renewed. Instead, Ecopetrol’s share as of
July 2010 will increase to 100 percent after
royalties.
“This is the first association contract that
expires in the Llanos Foothills (of eastern
Colombia),” Ecopetrol said, adding that “the
other association contracts expire between
the years 2016 and 2020, and include, among
others, Cusiana, Cupiagua in Recetor,
Volcanera, Pauto and Florena fields.”
All of those fields are located in the same
region of Casanare province where the
Cupiagua and Cupiagua Sur fields are
situated. That province and neighboring
Arauca, which borders Venezuela, make up
Colombia’s most important oil-producing
area.
Ecopetrol said that Cupiagua and Cupiagua
Sur produced a daily average of 17,087 and
12,208 barrels of oil per day, respectively,
in September of this year.
Those fields were Colombia’s biggest oil
finds last century, but they entered into a
period of decline after pushing the
country’s oil output to a record high of
815,000 bpd in 1999. EFE |
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