A Special Report From Oil and Gas Investor and Global ... - Equión

"Colombia really is one of the most attractive markets in the world for a
company like ours,” says Mauricio de la Mora, general manager for
Interoil Colombia. (Photo courtesy of Interoil)
The company made a discovery two years ago in one of the
blocks that came with the acquisition, La Paloma. A drilling campaign
was begun in January 2012 in order to develop and continue
exploring this block.
CleanEnergy is an exploration and production company that was
founded on 2004 by Colombian shareholders with years of experience
in the petroleum industry. The company obtained its first two
exploration fields in the Mid-Magdalena, Toque and Quebrada
Roja, when Ecopetrol was still in charge of concessions.
“With these fields we had an advantage, because these were
blocks with pre-existing discoveries and we were able to quickly
achieve production,” says William Blackburn, general manager of
CleanEnergy. After this, and thanks to its producer status,
CleanEnergy obtained two additional blocks in later ANH bidding
rounds where it has conducted extensive exploration activities, including
2-D and 3-D seismic acquisition.
“We are an example of what Colombian small companies can do
to become strategic players in the oil and gas business,” says Blackburn.
He feels that companies like CleanEnergy play a vital role as
an intermediary, firming up resources for larger player to take over:
“Small companies are a ‘bridge’ for the international companies to
have an easier way to come to Colombia.”
He uses the example of Pacific Rubiales to indicate the potential
that CleanEnergy has: “Five years ago, Pacific Rubiales was a small
company like us. Thanks to the high objectives and goals its shareholders
had, it had become one of the best case studies of success
and an example of how small firms can become big players in the oil
and gas industry.”
Catatumbo
Sitting on the Colombian and Venezuelan border, the Catatumbo
Basin is a southwest extension of the Maracaibo Basin in
Venezuela, a petroleum supergiant basin that accounts for about 2%
of the hydrocarbon reserves of the world. It is one of the most prolific
basins in Colombia and, although only moderately explored,
the basin has produced more than 450 million barrels of oil and 500
gcf of gas since 1920.
PetroMagdalena is a Canadian-based oil and gas exploration and
production company with working interests in 19 properties in
Colombia, including the Catatumbo Basin; namely the Santa Cruz
and Catguas blocks. The company is excited about these assets as
the surrounding blocks have produced over 190 million barrels.
“Our main block is Cubiro, in the Llanos Basin, from which we are
currently drawing 90% of our production and see the potential for
substantial increase in production,” explains CEO Luciano Biondi.
Seismic work has been carried out and exploration drilling will
June 2012 ▪ OilandGasInvestor.com C-15