Oil In Colombia Research Articles

Oil in Colombia: History, Regulation and Macroeconomic Impact (Spanish)

Colombia’s oil history began in 1918 and reached its golden era at the end of the 1980s. The important discoveries made during those years led Colombia to an expenditure spiral, paired with a huge fiscal deficit and a high public debt, drastically changing a seven decade long record of fiscal stability. The era of cheap and easy oil is coming to an end and, although exploration contracts and investment have increased, no important discoveries have been. Regulation in the oil industry changed several times since 1974, responding to the discoveries made. Regulation instability can make private investors unsure about the guarantee that new conditions would not be imposed above those agreed upon.

Petroleum and the Transformation of the Llanos Frontier in Colombia: 1980 to the Present

PETROLEUM AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LLANOS FRONTIER IN COLOMBIA: 1980 TO THE PRESENT Jane M. Rausch University of Massachusetts Amherst For more than 150 years the Colombian Llanos or tropical plains remained a largely abandoned frontier. Although the region encompassed 250,000 square kilometers, or more that one quarter of nation’s territory, its isolation from the center of the country due to the barrier posed by the Eastern Andean Cordillera and its deadly tropical climate discouraged all but the most determined whites from settling there. During the colonial era the principal inhabitants were: nomadic and tropical forest natives, Catholic missionaries trying to convert them, and a few hundred white settlers who carved out subsistence farms or established ranches by rounding up wild cattle. After winning Independence from Spain in 1824 Colombian leaders in Bogotá believed that the Llanos were a potentially rich territory, but their various schemes to develop the region had little success. By the twentieth century only the town of Villavicencio and the surrounding area known as Meta, due to the main road connecting it directly with Bogotá, showed substantial progress. The other plains regions: Casanare, Arauca, and Vichada registered little change despite the determined efforts of President Alfonso López Pumarejo’s (1934-1938) “Revolución en Marcha” to encourage their development. Administered as territories called “Intendancies,” or “Comisarı́as Especiales,” the four provinces that made up the Llanos frontier continued in a state of tutelage under the national government during the first three quarters of the twentieth century.1 The discovery of large deposits of exploitable oil at Caño Limón, Arauca in 1983; at Cusiana, Casanare in 1990, and at Chichimene, Castilla la Nueva, and Apiay, Meta in 1996 converted the piedmont section of these Llanos provinces into the region with the highest economic and political growth of Colombia. The resulting oil boom quickly transformed the heretofore-neglected frontier into a zone of primary national significance and stimulated enormous changes within each province. After briefly reviewing the development of Colombian oil production, this essay will summarize some of the most important political, economic and social changes, both positive and negative, that have occurred in the Llanos since 1980.2 Oil in Colombia: from Consumer to Exporting Nation Between 1859, the year that marked the drilling of the first oil well in Pennsylvania, and until the First World War, the United States with C 2009 Southeastern Council on Latin American Studies and Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 113 The Latin Americanist, March 2009 Standard Oil in the lead established a dominant position in world petroleum production. This ascendancy, however, was soon challenged by exploitation of oil in Russia. In addition, two European companies, Shell and Royal Dutch Oil, merged in 1907. With renewed incentive, they began to seek new oil deposits in regions throughout the world. In 1911 U.S. antitrust laws broke up Standard Oil into a number of constituent parts. Of the newly independent entities, Jersey Standard became the most involved in Latin America. The outbreak of WWI, a realization that U.S. petroleum domestic sources would be insufficient for the country ’s growing needs, and a heightened appreciation of potential oil supplies in countries throughout the Western Hemisphere encouraged this initiative. As a result in the 1920s there was a dramatic expansion of oil exploration and exploitation in Peru, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia as hundreds of large and small oil companies vied with one another to find and mine what was emerging as an ever more precious resource.3 In Colombia oil was discovered as early as 1866 at a site near Barranquilla , and ten years later around the Gulf of Urabá, but serious exploitation did not take place until after the ratification of Urrutia-Thomson Treaty by both Colombia and the United States in 1922. This agreement finally brought to a close the diplomatic imbroglio caused by U.S. support of the Panamanian revolt and separation from Colombia in 1903, and it paved the way for entrance of North American investment in Colombian banana plantations and oil. Soon Tropical Oil (a subsidiary of Jersey Standard) began production in the central Magdalena Valley and built a refinery complex at Barrancabermeja. Another...

Fácies orgânica da Formação La Luna, Bacia do Valle Superior Del Magdalena, Colômbia: implicações para a geração de petróleo e caracterização paleoambiental

Upper Cretaceous pelitic rocks generate most of the oil reserves in Colombia. In Del Magdalena Upper Valley (MUV), the existence of good quality outcrops and thermal evolution levels that vary from immaturity to the end of the oil generation "window" makes it one of the most appropriate regions for the study of primary migration and generation of oil in Upper Cretaceous. The main objectives of this work were to study the organic facies of La Luna Formation in an outcrop section called Riacho Bambuca (Bambuca Creek), determine the oil generation potential and characterize the paleoenvironment. For this research, 24 samples were used in palynofacies analysis (characterization of the kerogen components assembly) and in organic geochemistry analysis (Total Organic Carbon - TOC analysis and Rock-Eval pyrolysis, provided by Colombia Oil Institute - ECOPETROL). The palynofacies analysis included the use of microscopy techniques (transmitted white light and incident blue light). Furthermore, a Spore Coloration Index (SCI) analysis was made in order to determine the thermal maturation stage. The studied material was composed mainly of an amorphous organic substance, with its fluorescent coloration varying from yellow to bright orange. The palynomorph group is represented by spore morph and dinoflagellate cysts. The ligneous material are present in very low percentages; they are mainly opaque phytoclasts. The results of geochemical analysis showed TOC contents ranging from medium to high, excellent potential for the generation of hydrocarbons (PG >; 4 mg HC/g of rock), hydrogen index ranging from 329 to 589 mg HC/g, and low values of oxygen index, characterizing type II kerogen. The low degree of thermal maturation was determined by Spore Coloration Index values ranging from 2,5 to 3,0, Tmax values below 440ºC and Hydrocarbon Production Index inferior to 0,2. According to the organic facies data, La Luna Formation deposited in a marine environment with facies from disoxic-anoxic distal shelf and suboxic-oxic distal basin; there was kerogen of excellent quality, and its quantity was adequate for the generation of oil.

Prospective study for the production of oleochemicals derivates from castor oil in Colombia

There are many ways get closer to the future, being the prospective the one that conceives the future, not like an unique reality but like a multiple one, obtained as a result of the identification of the human being future actions. For all this, the human being takes knowledge, the yearings and the fears that he sees for the actions he will under take. Using the prospective, this article outlines the dynamics that will have the oleochemical castor oil sector, because Colombia has resources to develop Ricinus Comunnis cultivation and industrial uses of castor oil and its derivates. The study establishes the keys that define the current and future behavior of the system, the position and the power of each one of the involved actors will have, and the determination of the scenarios (future representations) with more probability to occur, as well as the definition of the scenario wanted and the strategies that will allow to reach it.

Prospective study for the production of oleochemicals derivates from palm and palm kernel oil in Colombia

There are many ways get close to the future, being the prospective the one that conceives the future, not like an unique reality but like a multiple one, obtained as a result of the identification of the human being future actions. For all this, the human being takes the knowledge, the yearnings and the fears that he sees for the actions he will undertake. Keeping in mind the characteristic of the palm cultivation (perennial, of late growth, with a 25 years productive horizon), and the future of the sector captured in “Visión y estrategias de la palmicultura colombiana 2000 – 2020” together with the economic tendencies of the world, the methodology of planning denominated prospective, becomes an appropriate tool to establish the future of the oleochemical sector derived from the palm and palmist oils, which is right now very incipient in our country. Using the prospective, this article outlines the dynamics that will have the sector, starting from the definition of the keys that define the current and future behavior of the system, the position and the power that each one of the involved actors will have, and the determination of the scenarios (future representations) with more probability to occur, as well as the definition of the scenario wanted and the strategies that will allow to reach it.

Original Source of Oil in Colombia

The Cretaceous rocks of Colombia, including the Jiron, Villeta, and Guadalupe groups, have been laid down upon an ancient floor of metamorphic and crystalline rocks. The lower and upper groups of the Cretaceous are very largely detrital in origin, while the middle group is partly detrital and partly of organically derived limestones and marls. Dr. Otto Stutzer has claimed that All of the oil in Colombia probably emanated from the Villeta group, that is, the Lower Cretaceous. There are no wells yet drilled in Colombia that derive a production from Cretaceous beds, nor is any part of the Cretaceous more than sparingly bituminous, although suitable structures are abundant. On the other hand, all of the producing wells in Colombia are in Tertiary formations and are drilled in situations such that it appears highly improbable that the oil could have emanated from Cretaceous strata, especially from the Villeta group. Moreover, the older Tertiary (Eocene and possibly Oligocene) strata are in many places richly organic and more highly bituminous than the Cretaceous and the producing wells have been drilled into them, and the presumption is strong that they have been the primary source of the oil that is being produced. In parts of Colombia where the older Tertiary beds are purely marine, foraminiferal remains are abundant and could constitute the source material of the oil. In other parts of the country where the older Tertiary beds are non-marine they include lignitic and carbonaceous strata, such as might have contained the source material of the oil, as is the case in Trinidad and, perhaps, also in some of the oil fields of the Maracaibo basin in Venezuela.

Original Source of Oil in Colombia: DISCUSSION

Original Source of Oil in Colombia: DISCUSSION