The National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH) has reported that Colombia’s monthly oil output rose to a record-breaking 903,000 barrels per day (bpd) in April 2011, a 16% increase from the same month last year.
According to a Monday Reuters report, the figure also represents a 2.1% increase from March 2011, when production reached 884,000 bpd. With April’s figures, for the first four months of this year, the average monthly production is at 872,250 bpd.
April’s figure consists of 806,000 bdp produced by state-run petroleum company Ecopetrol, with the remaining 97,000 bdp produced by companies contracted by the ANH.
Ecopetrol is also getting closer to reaching its target production rate of 1.45 million bpd by 2013. The company’ s monthly production average for the first four months of 2011 is 778,250 pbd, a slight increase from the 2010 average of 750,000.
Despite repeated attempts on oil pipelines, such as this past Sunday’s attack in Coveñas, oil production in Colombia has increased as a result of better security, heavy crude and incremental production at existing fields, experts told Reuters.