The operations will be carried out mainly in the Putumayo basin and will require more than US$ 400 million in their initial phase.
Colombian energy giant Ecopetrol and Canadian Parex Resources announced on Wednesday the signing of five agreements to develop new hydrocarbon exploration and production activities in two large basins in Colombia, which will involve a little more than 400 million dollars in its initial phase.
Four agreements will be developed in the Putumayo basin, for activities mainly in the municipalities of Orito, Valle del Guamuez, San Miguel, Puerto Caicedo and Puerto Asís, as well as Ipiales, in the department of Nariño, with which it is expected to incorporate incremental volumes of crude oil associated with existing fields and prospective resources in areas close to infrastructure.
"We are betting here on a potential of around 100 million barrels of oil equivalent (...) and an investment for the first phase in the next three years of close to 350 million dollars," Ecopetrol president Ricardo Roa told reporters on the sidelines of a conference organized by the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) in Cartagena.
The other agreement will be executed in the Piedemonte basin, in the Farallones block, which has as its area of influence the municipalities of Ubalá and Medina, in the department of Cundinamarca, and the municipality of Santa María, in Boyacá. Parex Resources joins as a partner and future operator and will involve approximately 60 million dollars.
"We are looking at an in situ potential of around 1 billion barrels of crude oil equivalent with a technical volume of close to 330 million barrels of oil equivalent," Roa added.
Ecopetrol, which is majority-controlled by the state, plans to invest a total of between 24 and 28 trillion pesos (5.447 and 6.355 billion dollars) over the next year, mainly in hydrocarbon production.
The agreement with Parex Resources is an example of the commitment of the two companies to continue with the exploratory activity in this basin of strategic interest in the search for new gas and light crude oil reserves, the parties said.
"These are new investments, building new facilities, drilling new wells, carrying out well interventions in existing fields," Daniel Adrian Ferreiro, president of Parex for Colombia, told Reuters. "For us, that's what's attractive, the resource is there, what we have to figure out is how to extract it efficiently."
