Colombia’s state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol, decreased its daily oil production forecast for 2012 Wednesday from 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 780,000, a decline of 2.5%.
In the first half of the year, Ecopetrol extracted 753,000 bpd, down 11,000 from the same period in 2011, the company reported.
Following the decline in oil production in the first semester of 2012, Colombia’s largest petrol company reduced its projected oil extraction by 20,000 bpd for the second half of the year.
Oil pipelines in Colombia have been hit by a wave of alleged guerrilla attacks over the last six months. A total of 67 attacks have occurred since the beginning of 2012, a 300% increase from 2011, Colombia’s ministry of defense said recently.
On Monday, an alleged FARC attack on an oil pipeline stopped production in the northeastern department of Boyaca. According to Ecopetrol, the pipeline transported some 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day before being shut down.
