Colombia's most important new pipeline, the Bicentennial, has been shut since February 20 because of rebel attacks and local communities' resistence to repair crews, a closure that may be costing the nation thousands of barrels per day in deliveries, sources said Thursday.
The shut-down, which is not widely known, was disclosed Thursday by Orlando Hernandez, president of Bogota-based Agora Consultorias. Hernandez is a former officer in the Colombian National Police and his firm tracks rebel assaults and kidnappings and advises multinational oil companies on security conditons.
Hernandez was interviewed on the sidelines of the annual Colombia Oil and Gas conference in Cartagena.
The six-week shuttering of the $1.5 billion, 235-km first phase of the pipeline which was completed last year was confirmed Thursday by a spokeswoman for Cenit, the transportation-assets company that was spun off by state-controlled Ecopetrol last year.
The capacity of the new line is 110,000 b/d, but the Cenit spokeswoman said the assumption that the nation is losing that much in deliveries is "not correct." She did not provide a figure for deferred deliveries however.
According to Hernandez, the impact of the closure to Ecopetrol, which is the majority shareholder in the new line, has been an average deferment of 6,000 b/d in deliveries since the beginning of 2014.
The closure was forced after the line was hit by nine separate attacks by suspected rebels, Hernandez said. Efforts to repair the line have been impeded by community blockades led by the U'wa indigenous community that has conditioned access by repair crews on the government's promising to address environmental damages as well as adding new security, Hernandez said.
Hernandez said the problems keeping the pipeline open reflect Colombia's ongoing security and social conflict issues that have slowed the natino's production growth over the last two years, after a decade of double-digit increases. The rebel group FARC in particular has stepped up attacks to exert pressure in Havana peace negotiations, he said.
Another rebel group known as the ELN has also stepped up attacks in a bid to force the government to join the Havana negotiatons, Hernandez said. So far the government has insisted it will negotiate a peace deal with one rebel group at a time.
Rebel attacks on pipeline infrastructure operated by Ecopetrol, which owns the majority of the nation's pipeline network, increased in the first three months of 2014 above the same period in 2013. The total, however, does not include numerous attacks on trailer trucks in Putumayo and other provinces used to haul crude.
But Hernandez expects a big increase in attacks through June in advance of Colombian presidential elections in late May and the June observance by rebels of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the FARC, the Spanish initials of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.
The Bicentennial Pipeline's first phase was completed last fall to connect heavy oil fields in eastern Meta province with the under-utilized Cano Limon pipeline that runs from Occidental Petroleum's Cano Limon oil field in eastern Arauca province to the Covenas oil depot on the Caribbean coast.
The Bicentennial's planned second phase, that would cost upwards of $4 billion and run mostly parallel with the Cano Limon line, will not be built until the country adds 200,000 b/d of production. Currently, Colombia produces just over 1 million b/d of crude.
The Bicentennial was planned to relieve pipeline bottlenecks that have forced producers to use tanker trucks to haul an average 12% of the country's daily production.
Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon addressed the Colombia Oil and Gas conference on Wednesday, announcing that he was sending 700 soldiers to guard pipelines and transit routes in southern Putumayo region, which has been plagued by rebel attacks over the last 18 months. He also disclosed that unmanned drone aircraft are being used to patrol the area and to identify attackers.
