Ecopetrol Eyes Shopping for Carlyle’s Colombia Asset to Increase Reserves

Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol SA is contemplating shopping for Carlyle Group’s oil driller within the nation because it seems to be to spice up reserves and output, its prime executives mentioned in an interview. 

Carlyle Group is searching for to promote SierraCol Power Ltd., Colombia’s greatest impartial oil producer, for $1.5 billion, Reuters reported final month. The belongings had been bought from Occidental Petroleum Corp. in 2020 for about $825 million. 

“We had been invited to the method and are presently analyzing the choice,” Rafael Guzman, Ecopetrol’s vp of hydrocarbons, mentioned Tuesday in an interview within the firm’s headquarters in Bogotá, talking alongside Chief Government Officer Ricardo Roa. “We now have but to determine if we current a suggestion,” Guzman added, declining to supply a possible quantity. 

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Carlyle Group didn’t reply to a request for remark. SierraCol, which produces round 45,000 barrels of oil equal a day, declined to remark. 

With Colombia’s reserves of oil and pure gasoline falling, and President Gustavo Petro refusing to grant new exploration licenses, Ecopetrol is targeted on contracts signed earlier than the environmentalist chief took energy in 2022. In February, the driller introduced it had taken full possession of the CPO-09 block within the nation’s oil-rich japanese plains, which helped enhance reserves.

“As we discover belongings and room to extend exploration and reserves, we are going to accomplish that regularly,” Roa mentioned Tuesday. Ecopetrol estimates it’s going to produce between 740,000 and 750,000 barrels of oil equal per day this 12 months.

Ecopetrol’s pure gasoline reserves fell to the equal of 6.7 years final 12 months, down from 7.2 years in 2023. In the meantime, its oil reserves rose to 7.8 years from 7.7 years in the identical interval.