Colombia 2014 Strategic Roundtable

Colombia

The Oil & Gas Year Colombia 2014 Strategic Roundtable, at the Sofitel Bogotá Victoria Regia Hotel, gathered some of the country’s most high-profile stakeholders, such as Javier Betancourt, president of Colombia’s National Hydrocarbons Agency, Luis Giusti, former chairman and CEO of PDVSA and Schlumberger general manager for Colombia and Peru Mauricio Alfonso Vargas.

Entitled Back On Its Feet: Colombia’s Second Oil Push, the roundtable event was composed of two sessions, covering the themes of increasing reserves and overcoming challenges. More specifically, much of the discussion centred on how new unconventional and offshore opportunities can help the country’s oil and gas industry get out of its slump. “There has been a very good alignment between services companies and operators to develop heavy-oil technologies and to make sure they are applied in a way that makes sense for the incremental production,” Vargas said.

Another important topic of discussion was how Colombia can continue to attract investment from international oil and gas companies, considering the reforms that have been enacted in Mexico and the opportunities in other Latin American countries. “There is a positive outlook for Colombia. If that was not the case, then there would not be so many international oil companies investing here,” Betancourt commented.

During the lively discussion, participants debated Colombia’s urgent need to increase its modest reserves and maintain its robust production in the face of significant social, regulatory and security challenges.

Participating were:

Javier Betancourt – President, Agencia Nacional de Hidrocarburos

Luis Giusti – Senior Adviser, Center for Strategic & International Studies (former chairman and CEO of PDVSA)

Humberto Calderón Berti – President, Vetra Energía (former chairman of PDVSA, Minister of Energy of Venezuela and president of OPEC)

Ricardo Sarmiento – Vice President of Asset Delivery and Technical Resources, Talisman Energy Colombia

Mauricio Vargas – President, Schlumberger Colombia

Warren Levy – Director and Founder, Estrella International Energy Services

Jorge Neher – Partner, Norton Rose