Canadian company Canacol Energy Ltd acquired the rights to search for oil and gas in four exploration blocks being auctioned off in Cartagena this week, reports the Wall Street Journal.
A total of 230 exploration blocks will be auctioned, largely in the Pacific region and along Colombia’s maritime border with Nicaragua, with others in the Amazon region in the south of the country.
Head of of Colombia’s National Hydrocarbon Agency (ANH), Armando Zamora, said that more than $1 billion has so far been raised in the auction, but Canacol Energy did not say how much it had paid.
Colombia’s state-owned Ecopetrol won the rights to search for oil and gas in fourteen blocks.
Colombian crude oil output in May rose 19% to an average of 776,000 barrels a day from 653,000 barrels a day during the same period in 2009, according to ANH.
