The president of Colombia´s state-run oil company has announced a 27% increase in reserves of 400 million barrels.
Company president Javier Gutierrez said Colombia´s biggest oil company now has 1.86 billion barrels in reserves.
Gutierrez also stated Ecopetrol is now producing 724,000 barrels a day and it is hoped that the figure will reach a daily average of 800,000 during this year. He said “This is a very positive result with the aspirations of reaching our goal of producing the equivalent of a million barrels a day by 2015 and 1.3 million barrels by 2020.”
Gutierrez also stated that there are plans to increase petroleum reserves in 2012 by exploring 42 new wells. Thirty-seven will be located in Colombia, three in the Gulf of Mexico and two in Brazil. The perforation of the wells will be financed by a $7.5 billion investment.
Total oil production in Colombia, the fourth biggest oil producer in Latin America, reached 914,000 barrels per day in 2011 on average.