The oil industry in Colombia began around 1905, and its rearrangement was due to the creation of Ecopetrol in 1951, reaching a daily production to date of about 1 MMbod, out of which 350 Mbd are refined in the country and around 650Mbd are exported, the exploitation activities has been basically continental, also known as onshore. The country’s proven reserves now reach 2.377MMbo. The above numbers creates the need to add new reserves, hence, the State has taken the decision to explore its large sea areas, which constitute an area of approximately 900.000Km2, (similar area to the Colombian mainland),. With this decision Colombia open its doors to the expansion of their economic resources, as well as the expectation of bear best practices for the development of the offshore industry in the country.
Although the development of this industry is a new area of business in Colombia, the awarding of several exploration blocks in both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, process that started less than a decade ago, generates important business expectations in all phases of exploration in the short and medium term, and for the long term the expectations are held on the exploitation. All this is in reference to the process of finding petroleum resources in the seabed.
However, is remarkable that in Colombia, maritime activities relating to the Oil & Gas industry, unrelated to exploration, have been developing for nearly 30 years now; there is subsea infrastructure installed to allow transportation of products and sub-products of petroleum all around the Colombian coasts. The main can be the oil terminal located in the Gulf of Morrosquillo, which operates 3 buoys mooring for the exportation process of crude oil, extracted from the East of the country.
On the other hand, there are maritime operations at the Port of Cartagena, Santa Marta (Pozos Colorados) and Tumaco on the Pacific, near the border with Ecuador. This is without considering the activities demanded by the Gas mining operations in shallow waters at the northern end of the country, on the coast of La Guajira.
This is only to highlight that there are areas for exploration of further business opportunities in both marine infrastructure projects related to the transportation of equipments for the industry, and areas for the maintenance of the infrastructure already in place. Colombia has developed in these areas highly qualified human talent, and technicians that operate and maintain both processes and infrastructure through engineering companies and companies rendering associated services to the industry, which has positioned itself not only country-wise, but also in the Latin American region.
The Local understanding of the industry, the installed capabilities and the development potential, summarizes a business opportunity to be explored with developers of technology and knowledge for the benefit of the development of the offshore industry in Colombia.
It can be concluded that, it is clear that the Offshore industry market in Colombia is divided into two well distinguished areas, first, the operation and maintenance of both the processes and the installed subsea infrastructure associated with processes of product export and import; and second, the area related to the processes of exploration of offshore blocks in the short and medium term, and the expected development of oil resources in the long term.
