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EL ESPECTADOR

As Oil Reserves Decline, Colombia Looks To Fracking

Colombia may have massive shale oil and gas reserves that could cover the decline in its crude output, but environmentalists are raising alarms.

Laborers work to extract oil in Colombia
Laborers work to extract oil in Colombia
El Espectador

BOGOTÁ — In the past three years, Colombia has seen a depletion of some 500 million barrels of crude from its national oil reserves, a bona fide threat to its energy self-sufficiency.

To counter this, Colombian energy leaders have begun to consider a turn to so-called "fracking," or hydraulic fracturing, the technique used to extract crude oil from shale stone. The national oil form Ecopetrol, which produces 70% of the country's oil, announced early this year a 14% drop in its oil reserves thanks to low prices — a disincentive to exploration — and may even have lost up to 20% of its reserves because of this.

This means the country is down to some 1.7 billion barrels, which would meet its needs only until 2023.

The principle of caution must prevail.

Julio César Vera, president of the Colombian Association of Oil Engineers (ACIPET), says exploration and seismology are at very low levels, adding that "as production falls, reserves also fall."

The country's main potential for fracking exploitation is the Magdalena Medio, a strip running up central Colombia through the departments of Santander, Cesar and northern Boyacá. Tapping into shale "would allow us to go from 1.6 billion barrels to more than 7 billion," Vera says. ACIPET puts fracking's production potential at between five and eight billion barrels of crude oil annually, and possibly 60 trillion cubic feet of gas. The country's current gas reserves are below seven trillion cubic feet.

But the water and environmental protection group Cordatec is already denouncing the environmental harm that the new oil exploration could wreak. "We are not prepared for fracking," says the group memeber, Óscar Vanegas, a lecturer at the Santander Industrial University. "We haven't done the necessary in-depth scientific research to be sure, and the principle of caution must prevail," he says.

The National Environmental Licenses Authority (ANLA), part of the Environment Ministry, says ExxonMobil is the only firm to have applied so far for a fracking license in the district of Puerto Wilches. "We have an application from ExxonMobil for the Magdalena Medio Valley and have yet to decide," said a spokesman.

Juan Carlos Rodríguez, ACIPET's executive director, says the extraction technique of "hydraulic stimulation" has long been present in Colombia and offers a gateway into the shale gas exploration. Fracking's environmental impact, he said, could be limited with "current technology."

ACIPET, representing Colombia's oil industry engineers, has announced it would take legal action to defend the "right" to pursue shale exploitation in the face of public initiatives currently underway to impede it in the central Colombian district of Cumaral. Says ACIPET's president Vera: "The possibility of losing 40 years of oil self-sufficiency is of great concern."

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Economy

Lex Tusk? How Poland’s Controversial "Russian Influence" Law Will Subvert Democracy

The new “lex Tusk” includes language about companies and their management. But is this likely to be a fair investigation into breaking sanctions on Russia, or a political witch-hunt in the business sphere?

Photo of President of the Republic of Poland Andrzej Duda

Polish President Andrzej Duda

Piotr Miaczynski, Leszek Kostrzewski

-Analysis-

WARSAW — Poland’s new Commission for investigating Russian influence, which President Andrzej Duda signed into law on Monday, will be able to summon representatives of any company for inquiry. It has sparked a major controversy in Polish politics, as political opponents of the government warn that the Commission has been given near absolute power to investigate and punish any citizen, business or organization.

And opposition politicians are expected to be high on the list of would-be suspects, starting with Donald Tusk, who is challenging the ruling PiS government to return to the presidency next fall. For that reason, it has been sardonically dubbed: Lex Tusk.

University of Warsaw law professor Michal Romanowski notes that the interests of any firm can be considered favorable to Russia. “These are instruments which the likes of Putin and Orban would not be ashamed of," Romanowski said.

The law on the Commission for examining Russian influences has "atomic" prerogatives sewn into it. Nine members of the Commission with the rank of secretary of state will be able to summon virtually anyone, with the powers of severe punishment.

Under the new law, these Commissioners will become arbiters of nearly absolute power, and will be able to use the resources of nearly any organ of the state, including the secret services, in order to demand access to every available document. They will be able to prosecute people for acts which were not prohibited at the time they were committed.

Their prerogatives are broader than that of the President or the Prime Minister, wider than those of any court. And there is virtually no oversight over their actions.

Nobody can feel safe. This includes companies, their management, lawyers, journalists, and trade unionists.

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