Colombia expects $10 bn in energy, mining investment this year

Bogota, Jan 20 (IANS/EFE) Investment in Colombia’s mining and energy industries should come in at more than $10 billion this year, a minister said.

The mining and energy sector has been “gathering a lot of momentum” in recent years and the current rate of hydrocarbon production is more than 730,000 barrels per day (bpd), with that figure expected to rise to more than 800,000 bpd this year, Hernan Martinez Torres told the El Espectador newspaper.

Colombia has proven hydrocarbon reserves totalling roughly 1.6 billion barrels, the energy and mines minister said.

A total of 53 small oil and gas deposits were discovered last year, Martinez Torres told the daily, adding that his goal is for $4 billion to be invested in exploration in 2010, not including outlays in the areas of refining and oil and gas pipelines.

Gas production in Colombia has grown over the past three years from 700 million cubic feet per day (cfd) to 1.1 billion cfd at present, and therefore new export markets such as Panama and Jamaica are being considered, the minister said.

“In Colombia, if there’s a big discovery, there’s no one to sell it to. That’s the sad part, so we have to expand our export possibilities,” Martinez Torres said.

The minister added that a $3.7 billion project to expand the oil refinery in the northern city of Cartagena is underway, while the refinery in the eastern city of Barrancabermeja is being modernised at an investment of $3 billion.

–IANS/EFE