Recent Production: Colombia, Mexico and Brazil
Colombia
Colombia production is holding a plateau over the past year after a large decline in the last part of 2015 and first half of 2016. August value was 858 kbpd (down 0.04% y-o-y).
Colombia oil reserves at the end of 2016 were 1.66 Gb (down 16.8% from 2 Gb in 2015 which followed a drop from 2.31 Gb in 2014). At the average 2016 production rate of 885 kbpd this gave an R/P of 5.1 years, the lowest for any significant producing country. Most of their production is heavy oil. Ecoptrol, which accounts for more than three quarters of Colombia’s crude and natural gas reserves and output, estimated about 45% of their decline was due to the “pronounced fall in oil prices”.
Individual field production is reported through the Colombian hydrocarbon agency (ANH), but data is only available to June. The previous decline mainly seems to have come from the many smaller fields (there are almost 500 total producing fields listed for 2017) and the largest one, Rubales. A few smaller fields were added in 2015, but the main cause of the plateau seems to be an arrest of the previous declines in the mature fields. Some of that may have been to do with the cessation of insurgent sabotage on pipelines.
It’s unlikely they will be able to maintain a plateau without new discoveries. Exploration has dropped significantly in the last couple of years; Anadarko has been one of the few companies to maintain some activity but they only found gas and the latest news from them would appear to indicate they are going to use money for share buybacks rather than expansion. Even EcoPetrol look more interested in opportunities abroad (e.g. offshore Mexico).
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