Colombia Resumes Talks With Venezuela to Plug Gas Shortfall
(Bloomberg) – Colombia faced the increasing shortage of fuel, while restarting negotiations to import natural gas from the neighboring Venezuela.
As a part of the negotiations, the authorities investigate that the state’s Petróleos de Venezuela SA can repair a bad damaged part of the 224 -kilometer (139 miles) gas pipeline, two countries in an interview with US sanctions, mines and Energy Minister Edwin Palma on Friday.
According to Palma, although the governments of the two South American countries have previously announced their plans for export plans to begin at the end of last year, Venezuela has the availability to sell 50 million cubic meters of gas a day and is ready to spend between $ 20 million and 30 million dollars for repairs. The authority added that the pipeline on the Colombian side should be corrected about 4.7 kilometers and repairs will take about three months.
“Now they have volumes, there is political will, and now they need to repair the pipeline, Pal Palma said, adding that imports can be realized as soon as possible this year. “We are looking for a solution to remove these doubts. If we see that it cannot be done in the end, that’s it, but at least we tried it.”
Venezuela’s Ministry of Information did not respond immediately to comments.
Colombia began to import liquefied natural gas at the end of last year to meet the demand from households and enterprises as the country’s reserves decreased, and new wells in the Caribbean waters will not be online until 2029.
This year’s deficit should be met with a reserve capacity in Colombia’s single LNG import terminal in Cartagena, known as SPEC, and additional infrastructure should be created to meet the demand. The deficit, which is equivalent to 4% of the total demand, is expected to expand up to 20% next year.
Although Palma is discussed about 15 projects, the gas demand in our country allows only two of them ”project.
Palma said that Grupo Energía Bogotá’s unit TGI and the state will prefer the Ecopetrol Sa Jome forces operated by the state to build a facility discussed for Northern Colombia, where there is a connection with the National Pipeline System. This will allow the two companies to “share the risk ve and added that if the project starts soon, it may be ready in early September next year.
However, any natural gas from Venezuela continues to reduce LNG imports to Colombia. Authorized, the materials from the neighboring country are expected to cost less expensive, because it is cheaper to carry gas over the pipelines, he added.
Palma, “the best exercise we can do is to find and find the gas we bring at a good price from anywhere,” he said. “It serves the sector, serves citizens and serves the market.”
-Help from Fabiola Zerpa.
(Updates with estimated troubles and comments that started in the seventh paragraph.)
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